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"SsSST} SENATE fef 



John Tyler Morgan 

= AND= 

Edmund Winston Pettus 



(Late Senators from Alabama) 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



^ 



Sixtieth Congress 
First Session 



SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
April 18, 1908 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
April 25, 1908 



Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing 



WASHINGTON : : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : : 1909 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Proceedings in the Senate 5 

Prayer by Rev. Edward E. Hale 5,7 

Memorial addresses 1 ly : 

Mr. Bankhead, of Alabama. . 10 

Mr. Teller, of Colorado 19 

Mr. McCreary, of Kentucky 

Mr. Nelson, of Minnesota 28 

Mr. Burkett, of Nebraska 34 

Mr. Johnston, of Alabama. 30 

Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 46 

Mr. Perkins, of California ^o 

Mr. Scott, of West Virginia 55 

Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 58 

Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 6j 

Mr. Foraker, of Ohio 68 

Mr. Overman, of North Carolina _ 74 

Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 80 

Mr. Depew, of New York go 

Proceedings of the House 98 

Memorial addresses by: 

Mr. Underwood, of Alabama 102 

Mr. Craig, of Alabama __ 106 

Mr. Burton, of Ohio 116 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri 122 

Mr. Clayton, of Alabama.. 1 29 

Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 141 

Mr. Burnett, of Alabama 156 

Mr. Richardson, of Alabama . _ 163 

Mr. Sulzer, of New Vork_ . 176 

Mr. Heflin, of Alabama ... 184 

Mr. Hobson, of Alabama _„ 191 

Mr. Hardy, of Texas [95 

3 



John Tyler Morgan and Edmund W. Pettus 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE 

Monday, December 2, 1907. 

The Chaplain, Rev. Edward H. Hale, offered the following 
prayer : 

O Lord, Thou art my God; I will exalt Tine; I will praisi Thy 
name. We have a strong city. Saltation will God appoint for 
walls and bulwarks, open ye tin gates that the righteous nation 
which keepeth true may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
peace whose mind is stayed in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord for- 
ever, for in Him there is an 1 verlasting rock. Thy counsels of old 
are faithfulness and truth. 

Even so, Father; and Thou wilt teach us. Thou wilt give us 
Thv counsel, that in righteousness and truth Thy servants may 
go forward to the duties of this winter of this place and of this 
land. They are here in Thy service — weak, but Thou art 
strong — listening that they may hear Thee. Inspirit them with 
Thine own Holy Spirit. Make them strong with Thine infinite 
strength, and lead them forward in hope, in faith, and in love 
as they seek here to be in service for other men. 

Consecrate for us all, Father, the memories of the past, the 
memories of the faithful men whom we shall not see here again, 
that Thou hast lifted up to higher service. Quicken us all by 
showing us that what Thou dost in the world must be done by 
Thy children, that we may indeed consecrate life to Thy service 
in Christ, Jesus. 

5 



6 Proceedings of the Senate 

< »ur Father, who art m Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy 
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in 
Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our 
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead 
us not into temptation, but deliver from evil. For Thine is the 
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. 

Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, it becomes my painful duty to 
announce to the Senate that since the close of the last session 
Hon. John T. Morgan and Hon. Edmund W. Pettis have 
departed this life. I send to the desk the following resolutions, 
and ask for their present consideration. 

The Vice-President. The first series of resolutions sent to 
the desk by the Senator from Colorado will be read. 

The resolutions were read, considered by unanimous consent, 
and unanimously agreed to, as follows: * 

Ri wived, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hon. John T. Morgan, late a Senator from the State of Alabama. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

The Vice-President. The second series of resolutions sent 
to the desk by the Senator from Colorado will be read. 

The resolutions were read, considered by unanimous consent, 
and unanimously agreed to, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with deep regret of the death of the 
Hon. EdmlImd W. Pettus, late a Senator from the State of Alabama. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, I offer the following additional 
resolution. 

The Vice-President. The resolution will be read. 
The resolution was read, as follows: 

Resolix d, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased" 
Senators whose deaths have just been announced the Senate do now 
adjourn. 



Proceedings of the Senate 7 

The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to Ihe 
resolution submitted by the Senator from Colorado. 

The resolution was unanimously agreed to; and (at 12 o'clock 
and 38 minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned until to-morrow. 
Tuesday, December 3, 1907, at 12 o'clock meridian. 

Thursday, March n>, 1908. 
Mr. Bankhead. Mr. President, as it will be convenient to 
myself and my colleagues, I desire to give notice that on Satur 
day, April 11, immediately after the routine morning business 
is disposed of, I shall ask the Senate to pause long enough to 
pay tribute to our distinguished predecessors, Mr. Morgan and 
Mr. Pettus, late Senators from Alabama. 

Thursday, April <>. 1008. 

Mr. Bankhead. Mr. President, a few days ago I gave notice 
that on the 11th of April, immediately following the routine 
morning business of that day, I would ask the Senate to con- 
sider resolutions commemorative of the life, character, and 
public services of the Hon. John T. Morgan and the Hon. 
Edmund W. Pettus, late Senators from the State of Alabama 

After conferring with Senators on both sides of the Chamber, 
it has been deemed best to postpone those resolutions until a 
week from next Saturday; that is, until April 18. 

Saturday, April 18. i"o8. 

The Chaplain, Rev. Edward E. Hale, offered the following 
prayer: 

In my Father's house are many mansions // it were not 
so, says Ike Savior. I would hair told you. I go to prepare a 
place for you. 

And in the prayer of the last nipper He says. Neither pray 
I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on m< 
through their word, that they all may h one, as Thou. Falhei 
art in me and I in Thee, that they may be one i)i us. 



8 Proceedings of ihe Senate 

Father of life, it has pleased Him to pray for us in these 
last words of His life, He prays that we may be one, one in pur- 
pose, one in thought, one in work, for the coming of Thv king- 
dom. 

Be pleased to consecrate to all of us here the memories of the 
past, to keep our memories green, that we may translate those 
memories into hopes and instructions for these days that are 
before us. 

For every word and work of Thy servants who have gone 
before and whom Thou hast lifted into that larger life which 
rests on truth and honor and purity, we thank Thee. For every 
memory of lives consecrated to the nation and to the world, by 
Thy servants who have left us, we thank Thee. For every word 
which such men have spoken which speaks of Thine infinite 
jaw and Thy perfect truth, we thank Thee. , 

And now here is to-day before us, and to-morrow, and all 
this future, oh God, take this nation into Thine own arms. In- 
spire us with Thine own Holy Spirit, that we may do justly, 
love mercy, and walk humbly with Thee. Make us strong in the 
infinite strength, that so Thy kingdom may come and Thv will 
may be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Here is our prayer as it was our Savior's prayer, that we 
mav be made one in Christ Jesus and in Thee. 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thv name. Thy 
kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is done in 
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our 
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead 
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is 
the kingdom, and the power, and the glorv, forever. Amen 

Mr. Bankhead. Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which 
I send to the desk. 



Proceedings 0} the Senate q 

The Vice-President. The re-solutions will be read by the 

Secretary. 

The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hons. John T. Morgan and Edmund W. Pettis, late Senators 
from the State of Alabama. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the den tsed 
Senators, the business of the Senate be now suspended to enable theii 
associates to pay proper tribute to their high characters and distinguished 
public services. 

R( wived, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives 

The Vice-President. The question is on agreeing to the 
resolutions. 

The resolutions were unanimously agreed to 



io Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 

Address of Mr. Bankhead, of Alabama 

Mr. President: In accordance with the time-honored and 
beautiful custom, we have set apart this hour to speak in 
memory of a distinguished Alabamian, who for thirty years 
was an honored and beloved member of the Senate of the 
United States. I must frankly confess that I am appalled at 
an attempt to pay even the tithe of a tribute to the life, services, 
.and character of the departed statesman, whose obsequies we 
have paused to solemnize — for in truth, Mr. President, of all the 
great men who have served in this Chamber none had a more 
profound and brilliant intellect, a broader grasp and discern- 
ment of economics and government, nor a more sublimated 
patriotism than John T. Morgan. Knowing him as I did in 
life, knowing the disinclination that always possessed him to 
be acclaimed with fulsome speech or vainglorious praise, any 
words of eulogy addressed to his memory, other than in simple 
justice to his public achievements would fail to be in keeping 
with the spirit of his earthly pilgrimage or of the motives that 
actuated his conduct among men. During the year 1907, and 
within the space of a few months, my State was bereft of both 
her illustrious representatives in the Senate. Scarcely were the 
garlands with which a grateful and affectionate people had 
strewn the new-made sepulcher of her senior Senator withered 
before Alabama was called to fresh lamentations by the intelli- 
gence that his comrade in arms and his colleague in honors, 
Edmund W. Pettus, had succumbed to the call of the inex- 



Address of Mr. Bankhead, of Alabama u 

orable Messenger, and he, too, "Wrapt in the mantle of his 
people's praises," was laid to sleep in the bosom of his cherished 
State. During this hour fitting tribute will be paid to the 
memory of this brave, gentle, and useful life. 

Senator Morgan was born on the 30th day of June, 1824, and 
had he lived a few days longer would have attained the age of 
83 years. The last eighty-three years of this Republic is a 
wonderful storv in the history of mankind. The imagination 
can scarcely conceive and the human memory staggers beneath 
the marvelous things that have been accomplished in that reach 
of years. It has witnessed the periods of exploration and dis- 
covery, of development and exploitation, of conquest and 
acquisition, of fratricidal strife — almost dismemberment — and 
then reconciliation and harmonious reunion. It has seen this 
Government wage a costly and sacrificial but, as always, suc- 
cessful war for the emancipation of a people struggling to be 
free from the tyranny of a European monarchy. Those years 
have produced^ most of our national literature — they have seen 
our greatest national tragedies, they have brought the marvels 
of the arts and sciences, which contribute so much now to the 
comforts and pleasures of our daily life. A truly marvelous 
eight decades in all things that go to make a great people, and 
John T. Morgan lived through them all, and through them was 
always an able leader, always abreast with and often ahead of 
the times. 

We have but little data or reminiscence touching the early 
life of Senator Morgan. His parents moved from Tennessee to 
Talladega County, Ala., when he was 9 years of age, and in a 
country neighborhood he spent his years of youth, and there 
attended the countrv school, where were laid the foundations of 
that intellectual training, which in its fullness and maturity 
was destined to be the admiration and wonder of the world. It 



12 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

is doubtless true that a subsequent love of justice and his pro- 
found knowledge of and love for the things of nature received 
their first nurture and impetus from the primitive and unpol- 
luted environments of his childhood. It is recorded that many 
of his playmates were Indian children, and his knowledge of 
their language, customs, and traditions, which in legislative 
deliberation made him a powerful champion of the rights of the 
red men, were instilled into his heart and mind by his vouth- 
ful associations. The educational advantages offered at that 
time to poor country boys in Alabama were pitifully meager, 
but in addition to his natural mental sprightliness the future 
Senator was blessed with a mother who, with patient admoni- 
tion, daily encouraged him in the acquisition of knowledge and 
wisdom. Mr. President, it is but another illustrous instance of 
the godliness, sacrifice, steadfastness, and patriotism of an 
American mother, wrought into the fabric of a splendid man- 
hood's service to a grateful Republic. 

At quite an early age young Morgan decided to adopt the law 
as a profession, and having diligently applied himself to his 
studies in the office of William P. Chilton at Talladega, he was 
admitted to the bar in his twenty-first year, and entered upon 
his distinguished career as an advocate and counselor. He 
located at Selma, but soon removed to Cahaba, and here he re- 
ceived the first real recognition of hij brilliant powers of analy- 
sis, logic, and delivery, which were to carry him onward to the 
very front ranks of the legal fraternity. 

In i860 Senator Morgan was named as one of the electors at 
large on the Breckinridge-Lane ticket in Alabama. The years 
immediately preceding that contest were most memorable in 
the history of American politics from a standpoint of conten- 
tion and controversy. The great unsettled problem of slavery 
was being discussed upon every stump and at every fireside. 



Address of Mr. Bankhead, of Alabama 13 

The passion and differing sentiments of the people of the coun- 
try at large were stirred as in a seething volcano. The im- 
pending struggle, despite the earnest efforts of those who sought 
a peaceful settlement of the controversy, was inevitable. Sen- 
ator Morgan upon the great issues involved in that memorable 
campaign was firm and resolute in his advocacy of the cause 
which was afterwards so gloriously sustained by Confederate 
arms. His campaign of the State only served to augment his 
reputation and standing as a public debater, worthy of the 
sword of the most dextrous adversary. The ticket upon which 
Senator Morgan was an elector carried the State of Alabama, 
and he was subsequently elected as a delegate from Dallas 
County to the secession convention. 

His first military service was on the staff of Major-General 
Clemmens,. who had command of the state forces at Fort Mor- 
gan, where he was on duty until the fort was transferred to 
the Confederate government. He entered as a private in the 
Cahaba Rifles, which was afterwards mustered into the Fifth 
Alabama Infantry, and upon the organization of the regiment 
he was elected major. This was the command of which Rob- 
ert E. Rodes was colonel. When this regiment was reorganized, 
he resigned his command as lieutenant-colonel and returned to 
Alabama for the purpose of recruiting a regiment of partisan 
rangers. This work he accomplished mainly by his own efforts 
and equipped it without any aid from the government, and was 
elected its colonel August 11, 1862. In June, 1863, at the in- 
stance of General Lee, who was then preparing for the Gettys- 
burg campaign, and who personally notified him of his promo- 
tion, he was appointed brigadier-general, but being impelled to 
the conclusion that his duty was to remain with his regiment, 
he resigned the commission, but was again, in November, 1863, 
promoted to brigadier-general for conspicuous and invaluable 



14 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

The field of the operation of the command in which he served 
extended from the Gulf to the Cumberland River, and from 
Nashville to Bull Run. His command saw constant, active, and 
arduous service, often far in front of the advancing army, 
without support or reenforcement, and often dependent upon 
the courage of its men and the ingenuity of its commanders to 
prevent capture or destruction. 

General Morgan was always a modest soldier. He had not 

taken up arms as a profession, but as what he conceived to be 

a solemn and imperative duty. He was not ambitious of rank, 

nor was he obsequious in undertaking to gain the favor of his 

superior officers. "He declined a brigadier's commission when 

it would have left his regiment without a field officer, and when 

it needed him; he accepted a brigadier's commission when his 

regiment, recruited by himself, could safely spare him.'' He 

■ 
was exceedingly zealous for the comfort and, as far as may be, 

the safety of his men, and shrank from seeking to obtain glory 
or praise by the unnecessary and fruitless sacrifice of the lives 
of his private soldiers. 

When the inevitable termination of the war was reached, 
and when Morgan and his comrades who survived laid down 
their arms and quit the conflict forever, there was none among 
them with a sadder heart than this gallant soldier, for he had 
loved and served the South "with an affection that hoped and 
endured and was patient." General Morgan went back to the 
people of Alabama to reenlist with them in a greater and pos- 
sibly more troublous conflict than confronted the people of the 
South upon the field of battle. Upon every side was the ruin 
and desolation of war. The old aristocracy of the South, almost 
feudal in its magnificence, had been swept away. Poverty and 
despair and desolation were almost the universal condition of 
our people, but this great man, well knowing the steadfastness 



Address of My. Bankhead, of Alabama i c; 

of Southern character and its ability to raise itself above con- 
ditions that at the time seemed desperate and hopeless, by his 
calm courage and wise counsel led and encouraged his people 
in that safe and sane pathway of redemption which ultimately 
led to our present happy condition. In the presence of con- 
ditions that made the most courageous and hopeful falter he 
never lost confidence in the ultimate triumph of the right. It 
is a great thing, Mr. President, for one to have been a helpful 
apostle of cheerfulness through an epoch of despair. 

In 1876 General Morgan was named as Presidential elector 
upon the Democratic ticket from the State at large. His wis- 
dom and eloquence and powers of forensic argument had ripened 
and become polished with the passing years. His eloquence and 
earnestness were irresistible, and in that campaign he achieved 
yet higher and more enduring honors as a statesman and pub- 
licist. The confidence and admiration of his people were so 
aroused by his eloquence and patriotism that in 1876 he de- 
feated George S. Houston for the United States Senate, one of 
the greatest and most popular men that Alabama has ever pro- 
duced. At that time I was a member of the state senate in 
Alabama, and voted for Senator Morgan. So great has been 
the implicit confidence of the people of Alabama in his wisdom 
and judgment, so profound their admiration for his intellect 
and statesmanship, so loyal their affection for his stainless and 
blameless character, that for thirty years, almost a rtiird of a 
century, the people of a great State retained him as their senior 
representative in the greatest deliberative body on earth, a 
striking commentary upon the possibility of reward that may 
come to a great heart and a great mind that holds itself aloof 
from "variableness or the shadow of turning." 

The Senatorial career of Senator Morgan, the things that he 
strived to accomplish, and that he did accomplish, the greal 



1 6 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Peltus 

national problems that he aided in solving, as well as the great 
national perils that he labored to conquer, are so well and gen- 
erally known that it will be useless on this occasion to attempt 
to augment his public career by their recital. He was a student 
of wonderful application, and was never content with super- 
ficial knowledge of any subject. He was familiar with the 
history and governments of all nations. His comprehensive 
understanding made him familiar with social and economic 
philosophy; his marvelous store of knowledge concerning things 
of the historical and political world, as well as familiaritv with 
subjects which to the ordinary mind would be of no conse- 
quence, justly gave him the reputation of being one of the most 
learned and erudite members who ever honored this body. He 
was many times honored with positions of great responsibilitv 
that called into exercise the most delicate as well as the most 
comprehensive knowledge of things and men. His recognized 
fitness for the position caused him to be named as a member of 
the Bering Fisheries Commission and also as one of the repre- 
sentatives of the United States on the Board of Arbitration, 
upon both of which he served with distinguished credit. 

Senator Morgan's advocacy of the Isthmian Canal was for 
years earnest and indomitable. It is true that he was partial 
to the construction of this great project across the Nicaraguan 
route, yet no well-informed person who is anxious to preserve 
the truth T>f history may successfully contend that any other 
American statesman more deserves to be called the father of 
the Isthmian Canal than John T. Morgan. By his persistent 
and successful advocacy of that great enterprise he has builded 
for himself a monument more enduring than bronze or marble. 
It was one of the most pathetic features connected with the 
death of this great man that he was not blessed to live long 
enough to see the successful completion of this great national 



Address of Mr. Bankhead, of Alabama 17 

undertaking, to which he had contributed so much research, 
enthusiasm, and persistence. • 

Senator Morgan was a man of wonderful perspective, and his 
mental horizon was not limited by local conditions, or partisan 
convictions. His statesmanship was of that quality "that he 
could see the near side of far things, and the far side of near 
things." The universe was his forum and humanity his field 
of endeavor. Senator Morgan's life was gentle. In social 
intercourse he was always affable, considerate, and just. His 
affectionate solicitude for the happiness of his household was 
beautiful in its tenderness. He was scrupulously honest and 
fair in all his dealings with men. "He locked his lips too close 
to speak a lie. He washed his hands too white to touch a 
bribe." 

Soon after the lamented death of Senator Morgan, Judge 
Thomas G. Jones, United States district judge in Alabama, 
related the following incident that had come under his personal 
observation a short time prior to Senator Morgan's death: 

I well recall the last time I saw him in Washington, over a year ago. 
We were friends, and he talked freely in the intimacy of such relation of 
his past public service and what he hoped to do in the few days which 
might remain "with him. Going to his bookcase, he took down a volume, 
which I was surprised to find he kept in his library, and read aloud to me 
this sentence: 

"The public servant who fails to act as his conscience dictates for fear 
that considerations which commend themselves to him will not meet the 
approval of the people mistrusts those who trust him, and in setting up 
higher standards of right and morality for himself than he accords to the 
people the representative often unwillingly betrays their best interests." 

He said he had always followed that rule. It is not surprising, there- 
fore, that he frequently led rather than followed the popular opinion of 
the hour and sometimes resolutely set his face against it. 

Mr. President, in addition to all of Senator Morgan's mag- 
nificent endowments of brain and heart and understanding, he 

7575°—°9 2 



1 8 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

was a Christian. His acute philosophy never raised him to that 
point where he could find any justification for renouncing the 
old-time religion of his fathers, which he at all times recog- 
nized as the last solace for those who had outlived their earthly 
hope and the last restraint of those who had raised themselves 
above every human fear. He went to his last reward an 
earnest believer in the faith of the Methodist Church, in which 
he had been a communicant from the years of his early life. 
He is safely entwined within the affectionate gratitude and 
loval remembrance of the people of Alabama. His fame as a 
statesman and publicist will always remain as a common herit- 
age of all the States, and he will go down in history one of the 
truly great men of our Republic. 

In delivering the speech of acceptance of the nomination of 
my party as a successor of Senator Morgan jn this body, I used 
the following language, which was then and now is a true ex- 
pression of my appreciation of Senator Morgan's greatness and 
of his service to his people: 

I trust that this legislature, before its adjournment, will make an appro- 
priation for a handsome statue to Senator Morgan, to be erected in 
Statuary Hall in the Capitol, at Washington, under whose dome for so 
many years, and with such brilliancy, he served his people. 



Address of Mr. Teller, of Colorado 19 



Address of Mr. Teller, of Colorado 

Mr. President: My acquaintance with Senator Mori, an 
commenced with his service in this body in March, 1877. He 
came here with a well-earned reputation as a soldier and civilian. 

He had held a high commission in the Confederate forces and 
had won a reputation for efficiency and zeal in that service. 
He demonstrated very soon that the devotion and zeal so given 
were thereafter to be exercised in the discharge of his duties 
here. 

He entered into the service here with that earnest and in- 
telligent zeal that marked his service in this body for thirty 
years. He took an active part in the work of this body, being 
a constant attendant of its sessions and a careful and constant 
watcher of the work of the Senate. 

He accepted the final results of the war with a proper spirit, 
exhibiting neither humility nor hatred, but with the spirit of 
a patriot he sought in every practical and constitutional method 
to heal the wounds inflicted in that conflict on the Government 
and people and to bring about that spirit of'amity and friend- 
ship so necessary not only to the happiness of the people, but 
to the very existence of a government such as ours. 

He was well fitted for the duties of a Senator. He was in- 
dustrious, learned, and full of love for the Government with 
which he had so lately contended, and endeavored by his service- 
here to efface as far as possible all recollections of the war. If 
he came into the Senate with any of the animosities engendered 
hv the war, he did not show it, and he compelled his associates 



20 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

here, by his intelligence and zeal for the public welfare, to 
equally forget and to accept him as a coworker in the interest 
of all the people in every part of the United States. 

While he loved the people in the section from which he came 
and the whole people of the South, he loved the people of every 
section of our common country. By his conduct in the Senate 
he deserved and secured not only the confidence of his asso- 
ciates here, but the confidence and respect of the people of the 
United States irrespective of party affiliations. 

He was learned, wise, and patriotic, and his death was a loss 
to the cause of good government everywhere. His record and 
his reputation are safely incorporated in the legislation in which 
he took an active part during the thirty years that he served in 
the Senate. 

His opinions were formed after much study and consideration, 
and when once formed he adhered to them with great perti- 
nacity, regardless of opposition, announcing them with positive- 
ness, yet without arrogance. 

He was for many years an earnest advocate of a canal across 
the Isthmus by what has been known as the "Nicaragua route," 
and the files of the Senate will attest not only his industry and 
zeal in the matter, but his wisdom as well. He did not approve 
of the canal proposed by the French, and he insisted to the 
last that the Panama Canal would disappoint its supporters if 
it did not prove an entire failure, and he often asserted that 
the Nicaragua route would eventually be recognized as the only 
feasible route. 

He was a firm believer in the capacity of the people for self- 
government; a believer in rights of the States to manage and 
control their own local affairs; but while so believing he never 
minimized the power of the General Government in the affairs 
of the nation. 



Address of Mr. Teller, of Colorado o\ 

He was able to distinguish between the powers delegated to 
Congress and those reserved to the States and people. 

He was a lover of justice, a fair opponent, advocating and de 
fending his position with the evidence of much research and 
learning. He was courteous always in his treatment of those 
who differed with him. Of him it may be said, he was a Senator 
worthy of the best days and best traditions of the body that he 
graced so long. 



22 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. McCreary, of Kentucky 

Mr. President: The death of Senator John Tyler Morgan 
removed from the United States Senate a distinguished states- 
man, a great lawyer, a wise legislator, a faithful soldier, and a 
conspicuous citizen. 

The Republic.^no less than Alabama, may lay wreaths of 
laurel and cypress on his grave, for although he was a native 
Southerner, typifying all that is purest, noblest, and most 
attractive in Southern nature, his thirty years' service in the 
United States Senate .was performed in behalf of our entire 
country. 

I first met Senator Morgan at the close <jf the civil war, and 
I was deeply impressed with his utterances about the war, and 
his views about the duty of the Southern people to submit in 
good faith to the results of the war and strive for peace, prog- 
ress, and prosperity. He had not been prepared by military 
training for service in the army, but he was of the very best 
type of the Southern volunteer soldier and was courageous 
and careful, ready and resourceful, dauntless of danger and 
undismayed by disaster. 

He entered the army as a private soldier, and was soon 
made major of the Fifth Alabama Regiment, and then colonel, 
and later brigadier-general, and after a while he resigned as 
brigadier-general to again command his old regiment, and was 
subsequently again commissioned as a brigadier-general, which 
position he held until the close of the war. 

In military life, as in civil life, he was the architect of his 
own fu *une. He was not the beneficiary of heredity or environ- 
ment. He came from the great common people, and had no 



Address of Mr. McCreary, of Kentucky 23 

illustrious lineage to give him eminence or emolument; no 
fortune or fame to attract attention or admiration, hut he be- 
gan at the bottom, and when his life ended he was at the top. 

I had business relations with Senator Morgan before he was 
elected United States Senator, and I had good opportunities to 
study his intellect and character. At the time of his election 
as a United States Senator he was an able and successful law- 
yer, and a leader at the bar of Selma, Ala. My service with 
him in the Senate and on the Committee on Foreign Relations 
gave me additional knowledge of his intellect, energy, fidelity 
to duty, and splendid equipments. It may truly be said of him : 
He never touched a subject that he did not illuminate and ex- 
haust; he never encountered a problem that he did not solve, 
and he never had a friend that he did not retain. It was the 
dying boast of Pericles that he had never made an Athenian 
weep, and the friend of Senator Morgan may boast that no 
Alabamian ever blushed because of an ignoble word or deed of 
Senator Morgan. 

Entering the United States Senate March 5, 1877, and being 
reelected five times, it may be appropriately said his life work 
was in the United States Senate, and here his brilliant record 
was made. In the Senate Senator Morgan took the highest 
rank as a great constitutional lawyer, and being for many 
years a# member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he 
closely studied all matters connected with our foreign affairs, 
and he ranked as one of the greatest authorities of his time on 
international law. He possessed a wonderful fund of knowledge 
and a wide range of information, he spoke with readiness and 
fluency, he was logical and convincing, and he appealed to 
reason rather than to the emotions. 

The financial policy of the Government engaged his r 'found 
attention and closest studv when he first entered the Senate, 



24 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

and his speeches on financial questions were logical, interest- 
ing, and luminous. His first prepared speech was on a ques- 
tion which at the time attracted wide attention, and was 
known as the "Stanley Matthews resolution to pay the bonds 
of the United States at the option of the Government in gold 
or silver of the standard value," and this speech immediately 
won for him recognition as one of the great speakers of the 
Senate. 

Guizot, in his history of France, declares that "great events 
and great men are the fixed points and peaks of history." 
Very few men have ever lived in our country who were actors 
in so many great legislative events as Senator Morgan. He 
performed his part conspicuously and faithfully in the great 
tariff struggles when the Morrison tariff bill, the Mills tariff 
bill, the McKinley tariff bill, the Wilson tariff bill, and the 
Dingley tariff were considered in the Senate. 

He was prominent and conspicuous in the great debates on 
free coinage of sliver, and on the repeal of the purchasing clause 
of the Sherman Act and other coinage laws. 

In the parliamentary struggle' and great debate on the so- 
called "force bill" Senator Morgan was among the ablest, most 
indefatigable and earnest speakers and workers who finally 
secured the defeat of that measure. 

As a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations he took 
a leading part when war was declared by Congress against 
Spain and when Cuba was made free and independent. 

When he entered the United States Senate there were but 
thirty-eight States in the United States, and he participated in 
all the legislation enacted by Congress in connection with the 
admission of eight sovereign States into the Union. 

It was, however, as an earnest, persistent, and able advocate 
of the greatest engineering enterprise of all time, being the 



Address of Mr. McCreary, of Kentucky 25 

construction by the United States of an interoceanic canal to 
connect the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, that 
Senator Morgan achieved his greatest distinction. 

He was many years chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Interoceanic Canals, and the labor he performed in connection 
with problems relating to interoceanic canals was stupendous, 
and perhaps never equaled by another member of a parlia- 
mentary body on one subject under consideration. 

He did more, perhaps, than any other Senator to develop 
sentiment in Congress in favor of the United States Govern- 
ment furnishing the money and building the canal, and his 
knowledge of legal, engineering, sanitary, and meteorological 
questions connected with the various canal projects was not 
equaled by any other man. His valuable acquisitions and con- 
tributions, embracing not only his own thoughts, but the 
thoughts and convictions of the best engineers and scientists 
of many countries, will not only attest the power of his intellect 
and energy, but will be of great value to our countrv. 

The abandonment of the Nicaragua route which he advocated 
for so many years was a grievous disappointment to Senator 
Morgan, but after the Panama route was chosen and necessary 
legislation enacted, he did not oppose appropriations or try to 
impede or thwart the success of the world's greatest enterprise. 

It is immaterial to his fame that the route finally chosen was 
not the route preferred by Senator Morgan. The salient, con 
spicuous fact is that an interoceanic canal, to connect the 
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is being built by the 
United States Government, and when completed, among those 
entitled to a great share of honor and credit will be Senator 
John T. Morgan. 

During his long career in the United States Senate many 
high honors came to him. Among them was his appointment as 



26 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

a member of the commission selected to prepare a system of laws 
for the Hawaiian Islands after those islands became the terri- 
tory of the United States. He was also appointed in 1892 by 
President Harrison as one of the representatives of the United 
States on the Bering Sea arbitration court, which met in Paris, 
France, the following year, and he served with distinguished 
ability on this notable tribunal. 

Senator Morgan took a deep interest in everything that bene- 
"fited the whole country, and he watched with pride and satis- 
faction its progress, its wonderful achievements, its magnificent 
success, its extending Christianity, its industrial and educa- 
tional advancement, its glorious heroism, and its tender and 
generous charities, with liberty, law, and order smiling on a 
happy, contented people, the progress and possibilities of whose 
country can not be estimated or measured. 

He loved his family and his home and the great State that 
honored him so long and that he honored with faithful service 
and with devotion that was never exceeded. He was with 
Alabama in her gloom and in her glory. By his speeches he 
infused new life into the energies and aspirations of the people 
of his State, and no man took a deeper interest or by his elo- 
quence and argument encouraged more than he did the develop- 
ment of the resources, the erection of furnaces, the construction 
of railroads, and the cultivation of the soil. 

He saw the issues of civil war fade in the distance, and the 
animosities and horrors of civil strife give place to fraternity 
and friendship and questions of commerce, trade, tariff, and 
finance. He had stood with his countrymen of the South in 
their defeat, disaster, and disappointment, and he rejoiced with 
them in their rehabilitation, restored happiness, and marvelous 
onward march to prosperity and wealth. 



Address of Mr. McCreary, o) Kentucky 27 

Senator Morgan was wedded to high ideals and took but 
little interest in the ordinary pleasures of the world. He liked 
excellence and perfection wherever they could be found. Ik- 
loved the great party to which he was loyal without shadow 
of turning all his life, and whose principles and policies he 
upheld with unsurpassed eloquence and unanswerable argument 
for more than a half century. His faith in the people and in 
our form of government was strong and steadfast, and his 
pride in the Senate and his jealous care of its constitutional 
rights, prerogatives, and dignity were conspicuous and seemed 
to grow stronger as he grew older. 

No man in his life better illustrated the forceful words of 
Burton's Kasidah : 

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause 
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws 

He died full of years and full of honors, and future genera- 
tions will view with admiration his great personality, his splen- 
did intellect, his unblemished record, and his sen-ice to his 
country of the first magnitude. 

He has fought a good fight; he has finished his course; he has kept 
the faith. 



28 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus. 



Address of Mr. Nelson, of Minnesota 

Mr. President: In the long period of eventful years that 
preceded the civil war the South had been favored with a school 
of brilliant and able men in the halls of Congress, whose renown 
extended throughout the entire country. And while that great 
strife had wrought havoc and destruction on all sides among the 
people of the South, it had not wholly destroyed or exhausted 
the supply of wise and able statesmen and legislators. There 
were still a number of brilliant and forceful men who survived 
the tragic ordeal of the great struggle. And* tempered as they 
were in the fiery furnace of war, they were in some respects 
better equipped and more highly inspired for the great task of 
serving their reunited country than were the great statesmen 
of antebellum days. Great trials subdue the harsher and 
colder intellectual side of our natures and make us more charita- 
ble and sympathetic to our fellows. They make us more 
responsive to the needs and demands of our common humanity 
and make us readier to find a remedy for the wrongs and perils 
afflicting and threatening the social and economic fabric. 

Foremost among the great statesmen and legislators of the 
South who survived the great civil war was our late colleague, 
Senator Morgan. He came to this Chamber in 1877, tempered 
in the fiery furnace of war and its most trying aftermath — 
reconstruction — a learned and trained lawyer and one of the 
ablest of debaters. In this body of so many able men he at 
once took, and held to the end, a leading part. His vision and 
work from the very beginning and throughout the long period of 



Address of Mr. Nelson, of Minnesota 29 

his public service were those of a statesman rather than a mere 
legislator, addressing himself to temporary and transitory 
affairs. He always considered great public questions from const i- 
tutional and national standpoints and bearings. His range of 
vision and his argument covered the entire scope of the problem 
in hand. Any subject that he look up and discussed lie would 
exhaust. He left no "terra incognita" in that behalf. Many 
brilliant men fail because of lack of industry and application. 
They rely wholly upon their power of speech and look to their 
associates for a supply of law and facts and piece these out 
with their metaphors and glittering periods, oblivious often- 
times of the fate of the measure after it has been baptized with 
their oratory. Not so with Senator Morgan. He was the most 
industrious legislator I have ever met. There was no limit and 
no end to his industry and research. He was not content to 
borrow or take things at second hand. He always went back to 
original sources for data, facts, and information, and hence it 
came to pass that when he discussed a measure he could handle 
it in all its aspects and bearings. His remarks on any subject 
were not only illuminating and brilliant, but always highly 
instructive to his associates. He was a mine of learning and 
research from which all of us gathered wisdom and knowledge. 
He was a man of strong convictions and indomitable will, and 
never a mere caterer to popular clamor or popular favor. When 
after careful investigation and research he had come to a con- 
clusion and made up his mind as to the merits and quality of 
any measure there was no swerving him from the path he had 
marked out for himself. It mattered little to him whether 
many or few concurred in his view; he felt that he was right, 
and that was all-sufficient to him. He felt that it was his duty 
to point out the right course to the Senate, and when he had 
done that thoroughly and fully, he did not feel called upon to 



3<D Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

hunt for votes or to resort to any private logrolling to repress 
or promote a measure. 

While Senator Morgan may not, in the popular acceptance 
of the term, have been regarded as a great orator, vet no one 
can deny that he was one of the greatest, most forceful, and 
most instructive of debaters. He had no use for and whollv 
eschewed the ponderous and glittering philippics of a past gen- 
eration. He may fairly be regarded as one of the fathers of 
that modern school of oratory which aims to convince by a clear 
statement of facts, by true logic and sound argument, rather 
than by rhetoric or an appeal to the passions. There was an 
assurance and a calm serenity about his speech that tokened 
his full mastery of the subject and carried conviction to his 
hearers. He spoke because his mind was full of the subject, 
and because his insight, studv, and research craved and 
impelled utterance. And what a flow of pure, clear, and unde- 
filed English was his speech ! 

On several occasions I occupied the chair while he was 
addressing the Senate at length and wholly extempore, when I 
made a special note, not only of the substance, but also of the 
form of his speech. Not only was his argument clear and log- 
ical, but #is periods and sentences were perfect and conformed 
to the strict rules of grammar and rhetoric, and needed no prun- 
ing or correction for a permanent place in the Record. I am 
informed that he never corrected his extempore speeches, and 
I am quite sure he never had occasion so to do. Few if any 
Senators ever equaled him in this respect. 

Manv able speeches lose much of their force from a lack of 
earnestness and sincerity in the speaker. Not so with him. 
He was always earnest and sincere, and never more so than 
when addressing the Senate. His great profoundness made 
him a serious man. The problems of life were to him serious, 



Address of Mr. Nelson, oj Minnesota 31 

and his duties as a Senator were to him the most solemn and 
serious of all. His devotion to his duties and his continued and 
persistent industry and unflagging zeal could not be excelled. 
The range of legislative subjects is so extensive that mosl of 
us can only keep in touch with and understand fully those 
which pertain to the committees of which we are members. 
As to other subjects we look for guidance and instructions to 
other committees and their members. But Senator Morgan - 
snined to have a knowledge of every bill on the Calendar and 
of its scope and object. His legislative vision was omniscient, 
but he was never supercritical or obstructive. He was alwavs 
kind and ready to lend a helping hand to a new Senator, and 
never objected to the consideration of a measure for the mere 
purpose of showing how scrupulous and watchful he could he 
and how important it was to check the exuberance of a new 
member. He was an omnivorous reader and a great student 
of history, well versed in the history and political status and 
condition of all the governments of the Old World. 

He was one of the first of the older Senators to meet me and 
greet me when I first entered the Senate. I shall never forget 
the kind and encouraging words he uttered on that occasion; 
and, next to this, what struck me most forcibly was the 
familiarity he manifested with the people and the institutions 
of that small country on the northern verge of Europe — Nor- 
way, the land of my birth. Even that small country had found 
a place in his historical curriculum. He seemed as familiar 
with that as one would naturally suppose him to be with coun- 
tries like Great Britain, France, and Germany. 

Though he was a profound lawyer, exceedingly well versed in 
the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the common 
law, yet he had never become so saturated with these thai ii 
had dwarfed him and unfitted him, as is the case with some 



32 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus. 

great lawyers, for the generous and liberal consideration of all 
the great problems that enter into and are essential to the well- 
being, prosperity, and happiness of this country. He dwelt in 
the spirit rather than the dry letter of the law. When he felt 
he was right — and he never advanced unless he was conscious 
of being right — there was no limit to his patience, persistence, 
and perseverance. Though on occasions he seemed to stand 
almost alone, yet he never shrank or flinched. The courage of 
his conviction was so intense that he never faltered. And what 
a grim, fearless legislative Spartan he was! In ray mind's 
eye I still see him standing at his well-known desk, erect and 
determined, hoary with wisdom and with age, instructing the 
Senate on great public questions in choice, terse, and clear Eng- 
lish. Even those who did not agree with him could not help 
but admire and respect his sincerity, his thoroughness and fear- 
lessness. And all of us found something to learn, something we 
did not know, when he addressed the Senate. 

Such men as Senator Morgan give a character and standing 
to the Senate among the American people which it could not 
have without them. When he passed away he was one of the 
great patriarchs of this body who had helped to bring us back 
into the promised land of a reunited country, one in heart, in 
spirit, and in aspirations, a country that we all love, that we 
live for, and are ready to die for. 

These -tributes that we pay to his memory to-day, these gar- 
lands of speech that we strew on his grave, are feeble compared 
with the tributes that he paid his country by thirty years of 
faithful, honest service in the Senate. In the fullness of years, 
when his great life work was ended, he bade us a final farewell, 
final as to his mortal presence, but not final as to the inspiration 
that comes to us from his life and the work he wrought and 
accomplished. That spirit that was his will survive to us so 



Address of Mr. Nelson, of Minnesota 33 

long as we are faithful to the high and noble standard which 
was 1 lis. 

Grand old Southern Puritan, you are with us no more, but 
the memory of your noble and upright life, of what you did 
and sought to do for the good of humanity, will be cherished 
by your associates to the end of their days. Alabama has been 
represented by many noble and great men in the Congress of 
the United States, but by none nobler or greater than Senator 
Morgan. His most lasting monument will be not in the granite 
or marble that is placed over his tomb, but in the records and 
' files of the United States Senate. 

May the spirit that guided him be our guide and mentor, to 
the end that what has been said of him can be said of us — that 
we have been faithful to our trust and duty. 
75750—09 3 



34 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus. 



Address of Mr. Burkett, of Nebraska 

Mr. President: But for the invitation of the Senator from 
Alabama, the successor of him to whose memory we are here 
paving tribute, I should have remained quiet and listened to 
those older in the service and better acquainted with our late 
distinguished friend and colleague. 

It is certainlv very proper that the Senate should lay aside 
its work and devote this hour to the life and memory of one 
who was so long one of its most important members and who 
honored this body and the country he served so much as did 
the late Senator Morgan. It is, however, more appropriate 
that those who served with him longer and knew him better 
should occupv most of the time, and therefore I shall ask the 
indulgence of the Senate but a moment. 

.The parting with friends at death is always sad. The ties 
of friendship and affection are broken, and those who are left 
are deprived of a sweet companionship and beloved association. 
But in this case the loss is more than personal, for the country 
has lost one of its most devoted public servants. Senator 
Morgan's public Ijfe was so long and his service in this body 
of such -an unusually high character that I can well understand 
the great sorrow that has been shown by those of his former 
associates who have already spoken. I have been very deeply 
impressed by what has been said, and as I have listened to 
the words of others it has seemed to me that, after all, life is 
worth living if it is lived rightly, and that a man's work is 
properly measured and appreciated. The words that have 
been uttered to-day are not only tokens of the esteem in which 



Address of Mr. Burkett, of Nebraska 35 

he was held by those who knew him so long and so well, but 
they are monuments imperishable and everlasting to the hon- 
esty, the courage, the energy, and the devotion of our late col- 
league to the great public service that he made his life work. 

In the rush and hurry of life there is not always opportunity 
and perhaps there is not always inclination to recognize prop- 
erly the worth of men, but it is when the trials are passed 
and the books are closed that the proper and everlasting esti- 
mate of a man is made. I have no doubt that there have come 
to our deceased friend times of disappointment, times of dis- 
couragement, and times when he would have given the richest 
things that he had to have been assured of the appreciation 
of his fellow-men that has been expressed here to-day. It has 
been no fulsome praise; it has been the expression of genuine 
appreciation of men most competent to judge. There mav be 
erected to his memory monuments of marble and bronze. 
They will keep his name fresh in the me'mory of men, but these 
remarks to-day tell, as the cold stone can never tell, of the 
things for which he was loved and that made him great in the 
estimate of mankind. There is no reward equal to the respect 
of one's fellow-men. It is a reward that mav always be had, 
yet one that is not always had. It is a reward that must be 
earned, and happy indeed is he who gains it and few are there 
who gain it in the degree and the measure, so universallv and 
with so many people, as did the late Senator. Men mav inherit 
riches, they may buy the gaudy things of life, and temporary 
honors may at times be theirs by accident, but the undving 
affection and respect of men comes neither by inheritance, by 
purchase, nor by chance. It is truly a reward of merit. 

The life of such a man is an encouragement to everyone who 
knows of it. As I have heard from the lips of Senators here 
to-day the splendid tributes to the noble life of Senator Mor- 



36 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pelt us 

can, I have thought what an inspiration to right living and 
faithful performance of duty, and that although he is dead, still 
those traits of character and manliness are living on, as they 
shall ever continue to live in the life and in the work of suc- 
ceeding generations. For thirty years he had been a member 
of this great body. For more than half a century he had 
de "ited himself to public duty, and there is no stain upon his 
garments nor any reproach upon his memory. He honored 
himself, the work that he was engaged in, and the country he 
served. The story of his life is a part of the history of his 
countrv. The one can not be written without involving the 
other. 

As a student of history I knew him long before I had ever 
met him personally. I knew his sturdiness of character, his 
manliness of action long before I came in personal contact with 
him, and one of the things that I looked forward to most fondly 
in coming to Washington and entering public life was the oppor- 
tunitv of meeting him and others of his distinguished colleagues, 
of whom I had read so much. I entered this body the youngest 
member, and he was among its older members. Our service 
together was not long, and accordingly it was not given to me 
to become personally well acquainted with him, but I can here 
testify to a generous and courteous treatment at his hands. I 
found him gracious and always ready to extend a helping hand 
and to encourage and direct a beginner along the paths that he 
knew so well. 

Of course I did not know those little personal traits that 
endeared him to those of you who knew him well, nor did I come 
in close enough contact with him to overcome the veneration 
and awe that comes to us of those that we have known so long 
at a distance and to whom we have learned to look for guidance 
and inspiration. But, sirs, I did know him as one of the truly 



Address o) Mr. Lhokttt, <>/ Xebmska 37 

great men of his time, and loved and respected him as one of 
the most distinguished of public men. No man was evei more 
devoted to public duty than he, and none more tireless and 
energetic in his work. And though the years crept on and 
weakened his body, yet his energy was unflagging. His mind, 
a storehouse of information, was drawn upon to the last in the 
service of his country, and what he had gained by his vears of 
study and service he used, even unto the end, with the same 
courage and sincerity of purpose that had characterized his long 
and busy life. His death was a distinct loss to the country 
We could ill afford to lose him, and yet, if measured in amount 
of work done or success achieved, we can truly say his work was 
ended and he was entitled to that rest to which all men must 
go. He lived at a time when there was great work to be done, 
and he helped to perform the greatest work that it has ever 
been given any man to do. No government has ever been so 
successful as the United States has been during the last fifty 
vears. No country has ever made the material progress, human 
libertv has never attained the high standard, and the people 
have never attained the opportunities anywhere in the world's 
historv that they have during those fifty years. 

It was given to him to see the States double in number, the 
population increase threefold, and the wealth of the country 
increase a hundredfold. He saw an expansion of trade and com 
merce in the comparatively few years of his life such as had 
never been dreamed of before in the six thousand years of the 
world's history. He saw the production of steel increase from 
16,000 tons to 16,000,000 tons. He saw the railroad mileage 
develop from nothing to more than 200,000 miles. He saw the 
nation rise from insignificance to a world power, and to it all 
contributed of his energy and his work. 



38 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

The men of his generation who have had their hand on the 
pilot wheel of this Republic will be more appreciated as time 
goes by, and I can not see them passing from us without a 
deeper sensibility and realization of the responsibility of those 
of us younger in years and upon whom must devolve the bur- 
dens that these older men have so patriotically and so success- 
fully borne. And fortunate, indeed, shall we be if their suc- 
cessors shall be able to carry onward and upward the work and 
the glory of the Republic as these men have in the past. 

Everv generation has its own problems, and every man has 
his duty to perform. Human and frail as we are, we are liable 
to think that all good begins with us and that all good will end 
with our generation. We forget that our great responsibilities 
are the achievements of our predecessors. If greater problems 
confront us than ever before, it is because greater men lived 
last generation than ever before. But, sirs, whatever the future 
mav have in store, into whosesoever hands the guidance of pub- 
lic affairs may come, we shall be fortunate indeed if the work 
shall be performed as successfully and well as it has been done 
by those men who have directed our course for the last thirty or 
forty vears. I speak as one of a younger generation acknowl- 
edging a debt of gratitude to a preceding generation, and as one 
who ferventlv prays that their example may be an inspiration 
and a guiding star in the work of this generation. 

I can not add more to what has been said of his work and 
merit, and in closing will only add he lived long, he worked 
hard, and the world is better because he lived. He performed 
his dutv well and was a useful man to society in the day and 
generation that he lived, and his reward will be the undying 
affection of all the generations that shall come after him. 



Address oj Mr. Johnston, of Alabama 39 



Address of Mr. Johnston, of Alabama 

Mr. President: In all the history of the Republic 1 believe 
no State has ever been called upon, by the quick succession of 
death, to mourn at the same time the loss of two Senators whose 
ability, integrity, and patriotism was so known and honored 
in every State of the Union, and who so largely commanded 
the respect and confidence of the Senate. My colleague is to 
speak of one of these, and it is my privilege to make some 
record of the life, services, and character of my predecessor. 

Edmund Winston Pettus was born in Limestone County, 
Ala., Julv 6, 182 1. He was the youngest son in a family of nine 
children. His father, John Pettus, was a planter, and a soldier 
in the Creek war, and his mother a daughter of Capt. Anthony 
Winston, of Virginia, a Revolutionary soldier An older brother, 
John J. Pettus, was governor of Mississippi during the war be- 
tween the States. General Pettus was educated in the common 
schools and at Clinton College, Tennessee. He was admitted to 
the bar in 1842, and commenced the practice of the law at 
Gainesville, Ala. In 1844 he was elected solicitor of the sev- 
enth circuit. In June, 1844, he was married to Mary, daughter 
of Judge Samuel Chapman, who was his faithful and devoted 
wife for more than sixty years. He served as a lieutenant in 
the Mexican war. In 1849 he went with a party of his neigh- 
bors, on horseback, to California. 

After his return to Alabama (in 1855) he was elected judge 
of the seventh circuit, but resigned the office in 1858 toreturn 
to the practice, and settled in Dallas County, Ala . where he 
lived, and continued in the practice, until elected to theSenate, 
except during the period covered by the civil war. 



40 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

He entered the Confederate army in 1861 as major of the 
Twentieth Alabama Regiment, and soon afterwards was made 
lieutenant-colonel. In October, 1863, he was promoted to briga 
dier-general for gallant and meritorious service. He was in 
many battles and was wounded four times. After the war he 
resumed the practice of the law and never sought or held any 
political office until 1896, when he was elected to the United 
States Senate for the term commencing March 4, 1897, and was 
reelected in 1903 and again in 1907 for the term ending March 

3. 1915- 

Six children were born to him, Mrs. Lucy Roberts, Mrs. Mary 

N. Lacey, and a son, Francis L. Pettus, and three who died 

young. His son was at different times speaker of the house 

and president of the senate in Alabama. 

There is one instance, Mr. President, in the career of General 

« 
Pettus that should never be forgotten, because it illustrates the 

courage of American soldiers, and should alone make his name 

immortal. Major-General Stevenson, of the Confederate army, 

in an official report of an action that occurred at Vicksburg on 

the 22d of May, 1863, says: 

An angle of one of our redoubts had been broached by their artillery 
before the assault and rendered untenable; and toward this point, at 
the time of the repulse of the main body, a party of about sixty of the 
enemy, under the command of a lieutenant-colonel, made a rush and 
succeeded in effecting a lodgment in the ditch at the foot of the redoubt, 
and planting two flags on the edge of the parapet; the work was so con- 
structed that this ditch was commanded by no part of our line, and the 
only means by which they could be dislodged was to take the angle by a 
desperate charge and either kill or compel the surrender of the whole party 
by the use of hand grenades. A call for this purpose was made and 
promptly responded to by Lieutenant-Colonel Pettus and about forty 
men of Walls's Texas Legion. A more gallant feat than this charge has 
not illustrated our arms during the war. The preparations were quickly 
made, but the enemy seemed at once to divine our intentions and opened 



Address of Mr. Johnston, of Alabama 41 

upon the angle a terrible fire of shot, shell, and musketry. Undaunted, 
this little band, its chivalrous commander at its head rushed upon the 
works, and in less time than it requires to describe it the flags were in our 
possession. 

Gen. Stephen D. Lee, who commanded Pettus's brigade, com- 
menting upon this action, says: 

When the fort was first taken an attempt was made to recapture il liv 
Captain Oden, of the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment, but he and Lieutenant 
Wallace and every man in the company were killed. 

* * * * * * * 

When a call for volunteers was made to, again make the assault two 
companies of Walls's Texas Legion responded to a man; about 20 men 
were cut off from the right, and either Major Steele or Captain Bradley 
asked Colonel PETTUS if he was going to tell them how to take the fort. 
Pettis replied: "I will not tell you how to take the fort, but will show 
you," and he took a musket and took his place at the head of the assaulting 
party. Pettus arranged with General Lee how he should approach the 
fort, and to concentrate the Confederate tire upon it until he should signal 
to cease firing. This was done, and immediately after the signal was given 
PETTUS and his men rushed into the fort and for the flag on the parapet. 
It was seized at the same instant by PETTfs and Bradley, and neither 
would for a moment relinquish it; then Pettis said; "The flag honorably 
belongs to the Texans, and they shall have it." The surrender of the 
L'nion soldiers in the ditch outside of the fort was compelled by Pettis 
cutting the fuses of 12-pound shells so they would explode in a few seconds 
and throwing them over into the Federal ranks, which resulted in the sur- 
render of a lieutenant-colonel and about 50 men. 

On the 23d of May, 1863, General Lee addressed the following 
note to General Stevenson: 

General; I send you the flag taken by the Texans under the lead of our 
gallant Lieut. Col. E. W. Pettis, Twentieth Alabama Regiment. It was 
as gallant an act as I have ever seen during the war. I have pledged 
myself to give it to the captors. I beg that you and General Pemberton 
will bear me out. 

Your obedient servant, Stephen' I>. Lee. 

Brigadit r-Cetu ral. 



42 Memorial Addresses: Senators 'Morgan and Pcttus 

It is also recorded that on the night of the assault the Texans 
engaged in it unanimously elected Pettus to be a Texan, and 
he always considered this one of the greatest compliments ever 
paid him. 

I remember well, Mr. President, during the reconstruction 
period, when a contest was on as to whether Lindsay or Smith 
should be seated as governor, and Federal troops were camped 
about the capitol of Alabama, and it was feared that a collision 
would occur, that General Pettis was selected to guide and 
direct the Democratic cause, because of the universal confidence 
of the people in his unflinching courage and wise discretion. 
The results justified this confidence. 

In figure he was tall, strongly built, with a noble head and 
rugged features. His constitution was powerful, his habits tem- 
perate and frugal. His integrity and sincerity were never ques- 
tioned. He was angular in his methods of thinking and lan- 
guage. He was a strong lawyer, brushing aside immaterial 
issues and driving hard for the main points. He stood at the 
very front of the bar for nearly or quite forty years. He was a 
hard worker in his cases, preparing them diligently in advance 
of trial. He had few of the graces of the orator and but little 
imagination, and yet few were more successful before juries or 
on the stump, because he inspired all with absolute confidence 
in the candor and sincerity of his views. 

That he" was fearless in the line of duty is shown by his lead- 
ership in the desperate charge at Yieksburg. Knowing him as 
I did, I am sure that it was a strong sense of patriotic duty 
that put him at the head of the assaulting column and then 
made him incur the peril of handling shells liable to explode in 
his hands. He never weighed his own fate or future when duty 
beckoned him on. 

He was of rugged character, strbng in his convictions, and 
aggressive in the maintenance of them. Vet those who knew 



Address of Mr. Johnston, o) Alabama 43 

him best knew that deep down in his breast was a heart tender 
and sympathetic, always ready to forgive an offense, full of 
human sympathy, and prompt to kindly action. I have myself 
seen his eves fill with tears on being reconciled to an estranged 
friend. 

It seems to me, Mr. President, that a man who nurses an 
injury and prides himself on relentlessly pursuing an enemy 
may be an able man, but he can never be either a great or a 
good man. We may not be able to rise to the sublime height of 
loving our enemies; these mountain tops of Christian character, 
giving glimpses of the radiance of the coming world, may be 
too loftv for our attainment ; we may be unable to blot out the 
memorv of a wrong committed against us by those who knew 
it to be without excuse or justification; but a man who steels 
himself against forgiveness and goes through life with resent- 
ment in his heart will never command the admiration of his 
people or deserve their leadership. How much nobler it is to 
have it recorded of a man that he loved his friends and con- 
quered his enemies by the generosity of his disposition, as can 
be said of this great man. 

He had no toleration for a timeserver or a trimmer, and no 
respect for a man not faithful to his convictions, promises, or 
duty. 

He was a constant reader of the Bible, and nothing delighted 
him more than to quote some text that would explain or illus 
trate his opinion or meaning. "Remove not the ancient land- 
marks which thy fathers have set" was frequently on his lips. 
In this day of innovation and change, when nothing seems safe 
from the spoliator, it would be well that none of us should for- 
get this divine command. Another text he seemed to love was 
"Thine own friend and thy father's forsake not." Duly a few 
days since a report was submitted to the Senate for the repeal 
of an act, and the committer in its report quoted from a reporl 



44 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

made last year to the .Senate by Senator Pettus, in which he 
said : 

The pardon of the President in a temporary sense had the same effect 
as the pardon of our Master, as described in the Bible: "Let the wicked 
man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and the sin 
which he has sinned shall be mentioned unto him no more forever." 

The people of Alabama, Mr. President, in my opinion, had 
more confidence in the judgment and wisdom of General Pettis 
on any public question and in his unerring instinct to follow 
the path of duty and safety than of any man of his genera- 
tion. It is most remarkable that a private citizen, engaged in 
the practice of his profession and holding no office to attract 
public attention to him for forty years, should during all that 
time have had this commanding position and influence in his 

State. 

* 

Mr. President, it is given to few men to be such a factor for 
good, to inspire so many with the love of truth and integrity 
and patriotism, and to close the busy years of a long life in 
the highest position within the gift of his State, and, finallv, to 
lay down his life in the harness, with the respect, confidence, 
and affection, not only of his colleagues in the Senate, but the 
people of his State. 

Talent and genius may command the admiration of men, but 
to command the respect, confidence, and affection of those who 
know him* for a long life can only rest upon a character founded 
in integrity, sustained by unflinching courage, and fortified by 
a love of justice. 

What nobler conclusion can come to one who has lived a long, 
unselfish, and useful life than to go down to his grave, like 
Senator Pettus, after eighty-six years of faithful service, loved 
and mourned by his people, and honored and respected by t la- 
nation. 



Address of Mr. Johnston, of Alabama 45 

An affectionate husband, a tender father, a true friend, an 
upright citizen, a great lawyer, an able statesman, a brave 
soldier, and a noble soul passed away when Kdmund W. Pettus 
died. 



46 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 

Mr. President: A sweet old age is more to be desired than 
almost anything else the world can bestow. To grow old grace- 
fully, keeping the heart young, the mind serene, and the temper 
sweet is an accomplishment that comes to comparatively few 
of those who round out the scriptural limit of human life. It 
means control of the varied emotions and ambitions of the soul, 
a philosophic view of the disappointments and failures that 
come to all, an existence in an atmosphere above the level of 
the envies, jealousies, and hates seemingly almost inseparable 
from life itself. Such men are rare, and dear old Senator 
Pettus was a conspicuous type of that class. Others knew 
him better than I, and will speak at length of his services to his 
State and nation. It is sufficient for me to speak a few simple 
words of admiration for the man as I knew him during his serv- 
ice in this body, and of his history as gleaned from his modest 
biography in the Congressional Directory. 

Senator Pettus's long life of four score and six years covered 
the most momentous epoch in the history of the Republic. 
Born shortly after the second war for independence, a grandson 
of a Virginia soldier of the Revolutionary war, he was himself a 
soldier in his youth in the war with Mexico. In his maturer 
years he served gallantly as an officer of high rank in the Con- 
federate Army. His was an adventurous and stirring career, 
for, besides his miltary service, he was one of the intrepid 
pioneers who in 1849 braved the perils of the savage Indian 
tribes and the still more savage wilderness, and crossed the 



Address of Mr. GaMinger, of New Hampshire 47 

continent with a party of companions to seek for sold in the 
magic sands of California. 

Yet in spite of a life including so much of hardship and of 
hazard, Senator Pettus was singularly kindly and gracious with 
his fellows — literally as brave as a lion and as gentle as a child. 
These contrasts of character are fortunately not infrequent in 
the heroes of our country. The utmost manly courage has, 
time and time again, been associated in the great men of 
America with the greatest warmth of heart. This combination 
always results, as it did in the case of Senator Pettus, in a 
strikingly winning and noble personality. 

For sixty-five years, or almost the allotted life of man, he was 
a lawyer actively engaged in the practice of his profession, save 
only as this was interrupted by his service in the field and his 
adventurous experiences in California. His professional career 
was distinguished by fidelity to duty and a constant effort to 
deal justly as between man and man; and though his profes- 
sional life in Alabama brought him no great political honors or 
financial emoluments it did earn for him such a high place in 
the esteem of his fellow-citizens that in the mellow autumn of 
his life, at 75 vears of age, he was nominated and elected to the 
United States Senate, the first political office for which he had 
ever been a candidate, and six years thereafter he was hon- 
ored with a reelection to another six-year term. Though he 
came thus late into this Chamber he quickly earned the admira- 
tion and affection of his associates. He was a true Senator— 
a man of noble experience and ripened wisdom — and his career 
here has left all of us the richer for the privilege of his ac- 
quaintance. His State may well cherish the memory of his 
long and honorable service as one of the most precious of her 
heritages. 



48 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

If Senator Pettus had an. enemy it certainly was not in 
Washington. Here he was respected by all, and greatly loved 
by his associates. Learned in the law, skillful in debate, full 
of humor, and always solicitous for the welfare of others, he 
gained a place in the confidence and affection of his associates 
that was sublime. Senators on both sides of the Chamber vied 
with each other to do him honor, and his death came to us in 
the nature of a personal bereavement. He is missed. His gen- 
tle admonitions are no longer heard; his strong, vigorous treat- 
ment of great questions is remembered and cherished. When 
In- died, a real gentleman passed away and the world was made 
poorer because of that fact. But he had acted well his part, 
had lived up to the full measure of duty and destiny, and at a 
ripe old age passed out of our sight into the mysteries of the 
life beyond. It seems to me that he had accepted what Aris- 
totle told the world to do centuries ago, "Live as nearly as you 
can the immortal life." Thus living he doubtless died in the 
full belief that somewhere in God's universe there must be 
time and room to complete the great work of development and 
progress. All we can do is to mourn him and tenderly place on 
his grave our tribute of affection and veneration. No; one 
thing more we can do. We can believe that death is transition, 
not annihilation, and taking the words of Washington Gladden 
as our own we can say : 

Assume "that death ends all, and you have a theory of the universe 
which confounds your reason and scoffs at your sense of justice and takes 
the nerve out of your courage and freezes hope at the bottom of your heart 
Assume that death ends all, and the springtime has no promise for you and 
the sunrise no gospel, and the stars in the black vault overhead mock you 
at your prayers. 

As we saw Senator Pettus during the last year of his life we 
might well have applied the words of Joaquin Miller to him, 
using the first and last verses of one of Miller's beautiful poems. 



Address 0} Mr, Gallinger, 0} New Hampshire 49 

He walked the world with bended head. 
"There is no thing," he moaning said. 
"That must not some day join the dead." 
* * % % * 

And then the old man smiling said, 
With youthful heart and lifted head, 

" Xo good deed ever joins the dead " 

And so we sav to our departed friend adieu for a brief period, 
when those of us who live as you lived "the immortal life" will 
again be joined in a higher and sweeter companionship than 
that of this world. Adieu. 
7575° — 09 4 



50 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 

Mr. President: The memory of the man whom we meet to 
honor here to-dav is worthy of all the praise that is due one 
who has lived an eminently useful and unselfish life, animated 
bv high ideals and using his talents for the benefit of his fellows. 

Senator Pettis lived long beyond the ordinary limit of 
human existence, but those eighty-six years were crowded with 
good deeds, and when he died there was not one who could not 
say that his had been a life well spent. Devotion to duty was 
one of his notable characteristics, and he at, all times strove to 
impress it upon those around him. Just entering upon a suc- 
cessful career as a lawyer, he ignored brilliant prospects to serve 
his countrv in the Mexican war; just as later, he again took 
up arms in a struggle in which he again saw his duty, arid in 
which his ability, his zeal, and his courage brought him high 
rank and the respect and honor of all who knew him. He was 
always close to the fundamentals of life, building upon that 
sure foundation a character broad and strong, which no storms 
of passion could shake, and no waves of prejudice could under- 
mine. He once unconsciously showed to me the secret of his 
moral strength and his wide human sympathy. He was telling 
me of his experience in 1849 when he went overland to Cali- 
fornia by one of the old trails. He said that he had resolved 
to take, and that he. did take, to the land of gold the best law 
library that California could have. I wondered at such a 
resolve and expressed my surprise that he should transport by 
ox team thousands of miles the heavy tons of Alabama State 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of ( alifornia 51 

reports, the bulky volumes of reference books, and all the court 
decisions which take so much space in the library of a successful 
lawyer. He smiled, and said that all those were not neces- 
sary; that his library — the best and most complete of any ever 
taken across the plains — was composed of the Bible and Shake- 
speare. Here, I at once understood, were the sources of his 
success as a lawyer and a man. From the Bible he imbibed 
those firm principles of justice which always characterized him, 
and from Shakespeare that wide sympathy with humanity 
which made him a loyal counsellor and a wise judge. 

When Senator Pettus first took his seat in this Chamber he 
was nearly 76 years of age. He had already spent a long life 
in work, which had brought to him the honor and respect of all 
who knew him. The high and responsible positions which he 
had occupied were alreadv more in number and more important 
in character than fall to the lot of most men. And in all of 
them he had displayed an uprightness, disinterestedness and 
public spirit that had endeared him to everyone with whom he 
came in contact. These qualities were recognized at once when 
he took his seat in the Senate, and in consequence of them he 
became one of the most respected and influential members of 
this bodv. On whatever subject he spoke his words carried 
weight and were listened to with pleasure and with profit. 
And with a colleague who possessed a character equally high 
and with abilities acknowledged to be of the first order, the 
State of Alabama was here represented in a manner which 
gave her a commanding position. 

Senator Pettus believed in the States rights and that they 
had never been delegated to the Federal Government. He was 
democratic in every sense of the word. He was always close to 
the people, being one of them in aims and sympathies, and 
striving for their advancement and well-being. This made him 



52 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

a true American, of which he gave evidence in his eulogy of the 
late Senator Hoar, when he said : 

It sometimes happens in Republics like ours that men affect to care 
nothing for their own ancestry and even ridicule others who are not of 
the same disposition. But the American does not live who would not be 
proud of the fact if he could truthfully state that his ancestor was a signer 
of the Declaration of Independence or served his country faithfully in the 
Revolutionary war. And such pride should be cultivated. It makes 
patriots and heroes by stirring the ambition of the young men to serve 
their country with all their power in peace or war and to work so as to 
become well qualified for such service. It creates that spirit of high and 
heroic daring displayed by England's great admiral at Trafalgar, when he 
exclaimed: "Victory or Westminster Abbey," and gained the greatest 
naval victory and a most honored place in Westminster Abbey on the 
same day. 

He did not think that our Statuary Hall was dedicated to re- 
ceive statues of great Americans simply to honor the illustrious 
dead. It was also to "fire the souls of generations living and 
to come" and to teach them that no labor is too great, no 
danger too imminent, no endurance too long in the service of 
their country if they aim to be among those honored for wise 
and faithful counsel or for brave and noble deeds. 

I think it would be difficult to find words expressing a higher 
patriotism than those of Senator Pettus just quoted. He who 
will live up to the ideals which these words express need have 
no fear that his name will not in the future be remembered 
with honor. And this was the spirit in which not only he but 
his colleagues served the Republic here. In his earlier life 
.Senator Pettus performed brave and noble deeds in the spirit 
of self-sacrifice, which glorifies the acts of men. Here, in this 
Chamber, he gave wise and faithful counsel, based on the expe- 
rience of a long life of honest endeavor and sympathy with 
mankind. A few days ago there was read here a report pre- 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California c? 

pared by Senator Pettus before bis death, which contains this 
quotation from the Bible: 

Let the wicked man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his 
thoughts, and the sin which he has sinned shall lie mentioned unto hii.i no 
more forever. 

I think that these words very clearly indicate the attitude 
which .Senator Pettus bore toward the world — one of kind 
consideration for the imperfections of man and a ready willing 
ness to blot out from the past of those who have returned to 
righteousness all memory of the results of weakness, of igno- 
rance, or of mistakes. His conception of a man worthy of the 
respect and honor of his fellows is, I think, portrayed in the 
words spoken in this Chamber in eulogy of a friend soon after 
he first took his seat here, and may be applied now to him: 

He never claimed to be better than other men. He was simply a true 
man, trusting in God and trying to keep His commandments. His personal 
life was pure, and his conduct as a private citizen and in official places 
was free from any suspicion of stain. He was too proud to think of doing 
a mean thing, and he was too brave to consider how any duty or responsi- 
bility might be avoided. 

Such was his idea of the character of a man whom through 
the stress of war he had come to know well; and such is our 
conception of the character of .Senator Pettus, whom we were 
able to know well through the stress of those struggles of a 
different nature which necessarily arise in legislative business. 
"He was simply a true man, trusting in God and trying to keep 
His commandments." 

May we not learn a lesson from the life of this good man 
that will aid us in our struggle to so live that it can be said of 
us, as we now truthfully say of him, that in every walk of life, 
in every position of responsibility and trust, it was his creed to 
honestly and fearlessly do his duty as God gave him the light 
to see his wav? 



54 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

May we not profit by this example? May we not inscribe 
upon our banner the motto: 

Show us the truth and the pathway of duty, 

Help us to lift up our standard sublime, 
Until earth is restored to its order and beauty 

Lost in the shadowless morning of time. 
Teach us to sow the seed of many a noble deed, 
Make us determined, undaunted, and strong, 
Armed with the sword of right. 
Dauntless amid the fight, 
Help us to level the bulwarks of wrong. 



Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia 55 



Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia 

Mr. President: It is with profound sorrow that I rise to-daj 
to do honor to the memory of the late Senator Edmund Win 
STON PETTUS, of Alabama, who "passed over" during out 
recess last summer, after having performed his duties as a mem- 
ber of the Military Committee long after Congress had adjourned. 

When I bade him "good-bye" for the remainder of the sum- 
mer, I did not expect it was to be a long farewell, and that 1 
would not see his venerable face again. I mourn him, not only 
as a fellow-member, but as a dear old friend. To me he was 
the -embodiment of the true meaning of the expression "a 
southern gentleman," courteous, honorable, and upright. I 
have heard many stories of his bravery and gallantry during 
the Mexican war and the civil war, and of his brilliant rise 
from private in the ranks to brigadier-general. His experience 
and knowledge of "things military" made him a very valuable 
member of the Senate Military Committee, on which he served 
for many years. Notwithstanding the slight infirmities which 
his advanced age brought him, his intellect was as brilliant, his 
judgment as keen as that of the average man of fifty. Old age 
had touched him very gently, and he died, as I am sure he 
would have wished, before his mind was impaired or his physical 
infirmities became master of him. 

"He has written his virtues and memory on the rocks, and 
his faults have we written upon the sands." The love and 
confidence of the people of Alabama, and appreciation of his 
service to his own beloved State and people, as well as to this 
nation, is attested by the fact that he continuously served them 



56 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

as one of their representatives in the United States Senate from 
the time of his first election thereto until the time of his death. 
We live and gain friendship, love, affection, and confidence in 
what we do for God and humanity, and this life is but the path- 
way to eternitv — a sweeter and lovelier world — and where 
faith, love, and charity reign supreme, where fame, power, 
and wealth are unknown, and where the crown of reward for 
this life's efforts is awarded. 

He firmlv believed in a reunited country and was ever ready 
and willing to lend his mite to weld more firmly the boundaries 
and in the erasing of any sentiment hostile to the interests of 
these United States. He was always found advocating liberal 
appropriations for the support and maintenance of our army 
and the betterment of that service — a soldier as well as a states- 
man. Senator Pettis was a man who, like many other old 
soldiers who had fought and endured the hardships of war, yet 
retained no bitterness and believed in the strengthening and 
reuniting of the different sections of the country. He had suf- 
fered honorable defeat, had seen his beloved South, for which he 
had so gallantlv fought, conquered, and yet no man had the 
interests of the Union more at heart in later years than he. 

My first acquaintance with Mr. Pettus was formed during the 
first vear of my service as a member of this honorable body, but 
which can hardly be said to have been formed under the most 
pleasant circumstances, for it began during the time when he 
was taking a most active part in support of the contention 
against my title to a seat in this body; but I did not at that 
time, nor have I ever had cause to believe since, that he was 
not conscientious and honest in his contentions and that he 
spoke his true convictions. That fact has been fixed more firmly 
in my mind bvour after association and friendship, which were 
of the most pleasant nature. 



Address of Mr. Scott, of West Virginia ^n 

We served together as members of the Committee on Military 
Affairs, and it was during our service together as members of 
that body that we were thrown in close touch with each other 
and the warmest personal and confidential friendship grew up 
between us. That friendship was of such a nature that upon 
one occasion, when leaving the committee room after a meeting, 
he put his arm upon my shoulders and said: "Senator, if any- 
thing should happen to me that I should have to be taken home 
from Washington in my wooden overcoat, I want you to prom- 
ise me that you will go with me." He well realized the fact that 
the fast-flying hours had destinies in them, and that our journey 
through life is but our journey to death, and that while the 
pilgrimage of some may seem sweeter and calmer than that 
of others, yet they have the same earthly ending — death. 

Such a beautiful character was that possessed by our de- 
parted colleague. The Angel of Death has taken him away from 
the turmoil and strife, cruelty and injustice of this world and 
has numbered him among those to whom God has given his 
beloved sleep. 

Sweet hnurs .if peaceful waiting, 

Till the path that we have trod 
Shall end at the Father's gateway 
And we are guests of God. 



58 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan a)id Pettus 



Address of Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 

Mr. President: We have come together to-day not to engage 
in the regular business of the Senate, but as Senators to rever- 
ently raise our voices in speaking of the dead. 

I believe there have been a greater number of deaths among 
the members of this body since the adjournment on the 4th of 
March, 1907, than during any similar period in the history of 
the Senate. Neither the old nor the young have been spared. 
The oldest, the youngest, Senators who but a short time ago 
were occupying their seats here, apparently in full prime and 
vigor, have been taken. 

Never during my service in this Senate have the two Senators 
from the same State passed away during the same recess — 
both in their seats on the day of adjournment and both absent 
at the reconvening of this body, having passed from earth to 
another world. 

Both the late Senators from Alabama had passed the age 
of fourscore years, Senator Pettus being 86 and Senator 
Morgan nearly 83. These able and distinguished Senators.laid 
down the burdens of life together. They were neighbors, 
friends, statesmen, patriots, representing the same city, the 
same State, the same country. How interesting the fact that 
these great. men should go together through the journey of a 
long life, through the civic struggles of peace and the fierce 
battles of civil war, and finally within a few brief days of each 
other surrender to the common enemy of us all. 

Senator Morgan in many respects was one of the most re- 
markable men whom it has been my good fortune ever to know. 
He had just completed his fifth full term in this Senate — 



Address oj Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 59 

thirty" vears of continuous service. Few have served so long, 
and fewer still have gained such prominence in the Senate and 
the country. He very soon rightfully took his place as one of 
the strong men of the Senate. He was a man of high sense of 
honor and of marvelous industry. He was always at work, and 
there were few subjects with which he was not familiar. He 
was a profound student, a great reader, with an extraordinary 
memory, and hence he was seldom surprised irv debate by any 
statement of fact pertaining to the subject under discussion. 
He had strong convictions on all public questions and was slow 
to yield to the arguments of others who differed from him. He 
was a Democrat and loyal to his party on the recognized doc- 
trines and policies of the party, but on questions that he did 
not deem properly party ones he followed his own convictions 
of duty, regardless of party. 

For many years he took great interest in the construction of 
a canal connecting the two oceans. Perhaps no man in this 
country did as much to secure an interoceanic canal. He 
favored the Nicaraguan route and was greatly in earnest in its 
advocacv. When Panama was determined upon by Congress 
Senator Morgan's heart seemed almost broken, as he felt sure 
that Congress made a mistake. He fought for the Nicaraguan 
route with such tenacity and power that he was almost irre- 
sistible. He never yielded. He opposed with all his power the 
treaties with Colombia and Panama — first in committee and 
then in the Senate. I believe to the day of his death Senator 
Morgan felt that the Panama Canal could never be built. Let 
us hope that he was mistaken. 

Senator Morgan was appointed by President Harrison as a 
member of the Paris Fur Seal Fishery Arbitration Tribunal, 
which was considered at the time to be one of the great arbitra- 
tions of the world. 



60 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

He was also named by President McKinley as one of the com- 
missioners to report on a form of government for the Territory 
of Hawaii. With the late Robert R. -Hitt and myself, he visited 
the Hawaiian Islands and did his full part in the investigation, 
the preparation of the report, and the bill which was afterwards 
adopted by Congress. 

For many years I was intimately associated with him. Gen- 
rally, I think, he was one of the most lovable of men, but, as 
with most men of strong character and pronounced convic- 
tions, he disliked opposition, and was a bitter, never-yielding 
antagonist. , 

Senator Morgan was for many years a very able member of 
the Committee on Foreign Relations, and during two Congresses 
was its chairman. He was punctual in his attendance at the 
meetings of the committee and was thoroughly conversant with 
every matter coming before it. There was no man in the 
country better informed on all questions pertaining to the 
relations of our Government with the nations of the world. He 
was always zealous and watchful of the interests and honor of 
his country. He did not believe that partisan politics should 
enter into the consideration of our relations with other coun- 
tries. Such questions are not partisan. 

He was specially interested in anything which had a human- 
itarian object. The Kongo question was a good illustration of 
this. He brought that subject before the Senate. I remember 
very well the last time he attended a meeting of the committee. 
He was exceedingly feeble, but the committee had the Kongo 
question under consideration, and he could not keep away. He- 
made an extensive statement in reference to the resolution. 
Seyeral times during his remarks I feared that he was about 
to collapse. The Kongo resolution was not disposed of at this 
meeting, and at the next meeting Senator Morgan was confined 



Address of Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 61 

in his home by illness, but he wrote me a note, which I will be 
pardoned for reading, as this was the last subject before the 
committee in which he was able to take any interest: 

Dear Senator Cullom: I regret that I can not attend the committee 
this morning. Please count me for a quorum and cast my vote for the 
Kongo resolution without change. I regard it as being of the highest 
importance to get this subject into the hands of the diplomatic branch of 
the Government as soon as practicable. Unless t lie matter is so disposed 
of by the committee without delay, it is now obvious that the Kongo ques- 
tion will become a field of wild, uninformed, and dangerous discussion. I 
hope we will turn this subject over to the proper authority without any 
other indication of the personal views of the members of the committee 
than is stated in the resolution, which is thai humanity seems to require a 
serious inquiry into the conditions that are alleged to exist in the Kongo 
Free State. 

John T. Morgan. 

Mr. President, as a citizen, as a soldier, as a legislator, as an 
arbitrator, in all the various responsibilities placed upon him, 
he brought to the subject great ability, great knowledge, and 
brought forth important results. 

Senator Morgan has gone from this Senate to that realm 
from whence no traveler has ever returned. He leaves behind 
a great name, a priceless legacy of industry, patriotism, and 
achievement in the interest of his country and of humanity. 

Those of us who have been here for many years have seen 
one eminent Senator after another fall by the way. The older 
ones in the Senate are nearly all gone and new men take their 
places, and may we trust and believe that in the future, as in 
the past, we may not be wanting in wise and good men to guide 
the destinies of the nation. 



62 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 

Mr. President: Senator Morgan was a remarkable man. 
I do not say this in the beaten way of eulogy, but merely as the 
statement of a truth. In any company of men gathered for a 
serious purpose, of action or debate, his presence would have 
been felt and noticed. It was easy to disagree with him; it 
was impossible to ignore him. In whatever he said or did, 
whenever he took part in any controversy no one failed to 
recognize that here was a real and powerful human force and 
one bound to make itself felt. 

It is not for me to attempt to tell the story of his full and 
active life or to mark the course of his distinguished career. 
Mine is a much humbler task. I would fain gratify my own 
feeling of friendship and affection for Senator Morgan. I 
should like, also, to give some expression of the sorrow which 
his death brought to me personally. But most of all, I desire 
to honor his memory, so far as I can, by placing in our record 
my estimate of him as a man and as a Senator. 

I had known Senator Morgan well by reputation and slightly 
as an acquaintance before I entered the Senate and while I 
was serving in the House. After I took my seat in the Senate 
I came to know him well, and later, when I began my service 
with the Committee on Foreign Relations, I learned to know 
him very well, indeed. The better I knew him the more I liked 
and respected him. He was a man of wide accomplishments 
and master of an extraordinary and minute knowledge of those 
subjects in which he was interested. I doubt very much if we 
have ever had a Senator who knew our relations with other 



Address oj Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 63 

countries, both past and present, and the political conditions of 
foreign nations so thoroughly as Senator Morgan. He was a 
tireless worker, and yet I have often wondered where he found 
time to gather all the information he possessed and to master 
all the details of every question which he took up for considera- 
tion. All this information, all those details, whether of diplo- 
macy, of politics, or of engineering, he had under complete 
control and could pour them forth at any moment, marshaled 
and ordered and following each other in perfect sequence. He 
had an extraordinary gift of expression. Combined with his 
mastery of details this gift often led him to a greater length 
of speech than was profitable to his cause. But no matter how 
or when he spoke, whether on the spur of the moment or after 
careful preparation, his sentences always fell from his lips 
complete and finished. In him fluency never degenerated into 
loose phrases or slovenly speech. His English was remarkably 
good and always pure and simple. He had a profound rever- 
ence for the noble language which was his birthright, and never 
failed to show his respect for it, as he did for all the great 
traditions of his race and country. It is the fashion to be 
heedless of this splendid inheritance and to disfigure it with 
slang on one side and weaken it 'by feeble artifices which are 
supposed to be fine writing on the other. Senator Morgan had 
no patience with either defect and, much and often as he spoke, 
never failed in respect and care for the "ample speech, the 
subtle speech," he used so well. 

He had survived nearly all his contemporaries in active life. 
The generation to which he belonged was one which had met 
great problems and looked war in the face. It had certain 
ideals which, whether we accept them or not, have, unfortu- 
nately, gone out of fashion. . But the important fact is that the 
men of his dav had ideals, both in the conduct of life and in 



64 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pell us 

politics. In a time like our own, when it is too much the habit 
to sneer at ideals and regard them as impracticable sentimen- 
talities, it is well to remember that these men of ideals who 
belonged to the past were a hard-fighting, brave, and peculiarly 
effective generation. It is equally important not to forget that 
now, as always, it is only the men of ideals who in the long 
run can move and guide the people, for however vivid may be 
the admiration for mere success, those whom the people really 
trust and follow must be men who are not content to minister 
to their appetites or their prejudices, but who bid them raise 
their eyes and beckon them forward to the heights beyond. 
We may, in our wisdom, have changed all this, but the nobler 
instincts still remain ready to start into life at the master's 
touch. One might easily differ with Senator Morgan as to the 

ideals which he followed as the years of his long life succeeded 

« 
one another in their ceaseless march, but one could never fail 

to respect their possessor or to admire the indifference which he 

showed to money in an age of extreme money worship, and the 

ardor with which he pursued objects which had no personal 

value to him, but which, in his belief, would benefit his country 

and mankind. 

There never was a better or more thorough American than 
he, or one who made the welfare of the United States more abso- 
lutely the test and touchstone of every act and of every policy. 
But his patriotism was not that of the village or the parish. 
He knew too much of the history of other countries; he had 
dealt too constantly with large affairs to be provincial. But his 
guiding star was what he believed to be the large and perma- 
nent interest of the United States, and that interest he wished 
to promote and defend with malice toward none and with charity 
toward all, but yet without flinching and without fear. 

Like most strong, determined men of decided convictions, he 
was ready always for battle, and the fighting spirit would blaze 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 6=; 

out sometimes very quickly. But he carried no grudges. When 
the light was over the war ceased, so far as he was concerned, 
and at all times, no matter how aggressive and combative he 
might seem, he had a fund of sane and cheerful humor which 
was never lacking and was always one of the charms of his 
companionship. 

When all is said, however, of his ability and his learning, of 
his many accomplishments, and of his long and distinguished 
public service, that which stands out most sharply in my mem- 
ory as the dominant note in his character was his complete inde- 
pendence of thought and action. He may often have thought 
mistakenly, but he always thought for himself. If he expressed 
an opinion, you could be sure at least that it was his own. No 
one did his thinking for him. I have seen him oppose a Presi- 
dent of his own party and support the policy of his opponents 
with equal cheerfulness, because he was satisfied that the one 
was wrong and the other right, and yet no stronger, no more 
loyal party man ever lived. His sense of the dignity of the 
Senate was as strong as his sense of his own dignity, and far 
quicker in assertion. 

As a man he took orders and directions from no one; as a 
Senator it never occurred to him that any outside influence 
could touch or control him, although he would consider with 
the most entire respect all that any great officer of the Govern- 
ment wished to say to him. He was quite ready to advise and 
consult with others, but the final decision must be all his own, 
and when it was reached modification became difficult and 
abandonment impossible. He was a stubborn fighter, and pos- 
sessed a most extraordinary capacity for developing theories 
in support of his position and then defending them, no matter 
how difficult they might appear, with remarkable force and 
ingenuity. With this ingenuity and pertinacity combined, those 

75750—09 5 



66 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

who did not agree with him often and quite naturally became 
impatient, but no one could fail to respect the energy, persist- 
ence, and fighting capacity which he always displayed, even 
under the most adverse conditions. But behind it all was the 
dominant note, a firm courage, a lofty and fearless independence 
of soul. I always think of Senator Morgan when I read Swin- 
burne's noble lines in the Prelude to The Songs before Sunrise: 

Save his own soul's light overhead 

None leads him, and none ever led, 

Across birth's hidden Harbor-bar, 

Past youth where, shoreward, shallows are 

Through age that drives on toward the red 

Vast void of sunset hailed from far, 

To the equal waters of the dead; 

Save his own soul he hath no star, 

And sinks, except his own soul guide, # 

Helmless in the middle turn of tide. 

He remained among us, working to the last, fighting back the 
weakness of age and the attacks of illness, with undaunted 
spirit and with unflagging interest in the great policies he had 
at heart, and in the great questions he had striven to settle. 
The end came to him after a long life spent in the sendee of 
his State and country. At his advanced age, after years of 
toil in which he had never spared himself, death was not unex- 
pected. But it none the less brought a sense of deep sorrow 
and of great loss to his State, to the country, and to all who had 
been his friends of many years in the Senate. Upon his asso- 
ciate, the friend of a lifetime, the blow fell with crushing force, 
and Senator Pettus, who was honored and beloved by us all, 
soon followed his colleague. The friendship and affection 
between these two venerable men was very fine and very touch- 
ing. I do not think there was a member of the Senate who 
watched them as they sat and talked together here day after 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 67 

day who was unmoved by the love and confidence and attach- 
ment thev showed for each other. Such a relation between two 
men of such an age, still engaged in the active work of public 
life, is as much to be admired as it is rare in our experience. 
Nothing could have been more pathetic than the silent grief 
of Senator Pettus when his colleague died. The slender cords 
which held him to life snapped, and in a few weeks he followed 
his friend to the grave. They were two impressive figures in 
the Senate, as eminent in service as they were admirable in 
friendship. They leave a memory to be cherished and honored 
among all who knew them, and especially among us who had 
the privilege of serving with them. 



68 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Foraker, of Ohio 

Mr. President: My knowledge of Senator Morgan amounted 
to little more than what I saw of him in the public service, but 
that was enough, and of such character, as to reveal the real 
man, for it went beyond what occurred on the floor of his 
Chamber, and embraced years of the closest intercourse in the 
work of the committee. 

The Record bears witness that he was an untiring worker, 
who discussed elaborately every great question of his day. To 
those who only heard him it was a constant marvel how he 
could find time and, in his latest years, command the strength 
necessarv for the exhaustive speeches he made, for they show 
the widest observation, the closest study, and the most thor- 
ough investigation. 

But all who served with him in committee work soon learned 
that what to the ordinary man in the matter of speech making 
is such a burdensome labor was to him but a restful recreation. 

He was blessed with exceptionally good health, studious 
tastes and disposition, a rich vocabulary, and a marvelously 
accurate and retentive memory. Seemingly he never forgot 
anything that he either heard, read, or saw. In consequence 
his mind was not only well stored with useful knowledge, but 
that knowledge was at all times available. 

All this is indicated by his speeches in the Senate. But it 
was in the freedom of the committee room where his brilliant 
powers were exhibited to the highest advantage. 

Although a ready and forceful debater, and a good extempo- 
raneous speaker, his speeches in the Senate were generally 
carefully prepared and delivered from manuscript. 



Address of Mr, Foraker, oj ( ^hio 69 

He practiced none of the arts of oratory, and made no effort 
at display of any kind, but usually read in a straightforward 
way, entirely unmindful of the style or manner of his delivery. 

In consequence, to those not specially interested in the subject 
he was discussing, his speeches sometimes appeared dry, formal, 
uninteresting, and hard to follow. 

For this reason they frequently attracted much less attention 
than they deserved. 

But in the committee room, where there was less formality 
and, as a rule, no previous preparation of what was to be said, 
his discussions were of the most entertaining and instructive 
character. 

He always spoke in a modest, unassuming, conversational 
tone and style, rarely showing even the slightest excitement in 
voice or manner, but, although he spoke extemporaneouslv, 
nevertheless his remarks had the same broad sweep of thought, 
the same logical arrangement, the same completeness of illus- 
tration and application that characterized what he said in the 
Senate. For reenforcement and illustration he drew at pleas- 
ure, with accuracy, and generously from history, art, litera- 
ture, science, personal experience, and every other source of 
knowledge. 

The time of the committee was, of course, always limited, 
but that did not seem to hurry him or to cause him to slight 
any point, nor did the time he occupied seem to excite the im- 
patience of even those of his fellow-members who differed from 
him and desired to answer the views he expressed. 

He was always a grand old man, venerable in age, in the 
Senate, and in appearance, from whom all w,ished to hear to 
the full extent he might be willing to speak. 

He was invaluable to his colleagues who differed from him 
as well as to those with whom he was in accord, for no point or 



yo Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

phase of any question escaped his notice or failed to receive at 
his hands the fullest elucidation. 

Those who agreed with him were strengthened in their 
opinions by his presentation of the strongest arguments of which 
their case admitted, while those who differed felt that if they 
could answer him there was nothing more to be feared; then- 
had heard the worst that could be said in opposition. 

My first service with him was during the year preceding the 
Spanish-American war. The Cuban question in some form was 
before the committee at every meeting, both regular and special, 
and we had many special meetings during that period on that 
account. 

The Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee 
at that time had been selected from among the ablest Demo- 
crats in the Senate. 

1 

With Senator Morgan, as representatives of his party, were 
associated in that service George Gray, David Turpie, John W. 
Daniel, and Roger 0. Mills. 

They were all men of the highest character and of the high- 
est order of ability, but it is no disparagement to any one of 
them to say that no one of them so completely mastered every 
detail of that complicated and troublesome subject or did so 
much to illuminate the dark places and make clear and plain 
the course for our Government to pursue as did J< ihn T. Mi >r< ; ax. 

In those days, the first of my service with him, I came to 
admire him not only for his ability, his wide range of knowl- 
edge, and his zeal in the discharge of all his duties, but also for 
his sensitively honorable character as a man, his kindness and 
gentleness of heart, his quiet, unostentatious demeanor, and the 
politeness and consideration he uniformly showed to his oppo- 
nents in his discussions with them. No matter how much 
aroused he might be, no matter how earnest lie might become, 



Address of Mr. Foraker, of Ohio 71 

no matter how acutely he might differ from his colleagues, he 
never permitted himself, in making answer, to show the slight- 
est disparagement for either them or their arguments, bul 
throughout was always as chivalrous and generous as the 
typical knight of the olden time. 

I came to admire, respect, and almost affectionately regard 
him. not only because of the virtues mentioned, but because 
added to all these noble qualities he constantly exhibited the 
loftiest patriotism. In all that he did he was scrupulously jeal- 
ous of his country's honor, good name, and highest interests. 

One uninformed might well have imagined, learning that he 
had participated in our civil war, that he had been a leader on 
the Union side, for no follower of Grant could have been more 
loval to our Government than was this white-haired old veteran 
who had distinguished himself as a follower of Lee. 

All these early impressions were confirmed and intensified 
by the long years of sen-ice that followed. 

He probablv did more hard work, made more speeches, and 
labored more incessantly along every line of opportunity to 
secure the construction of an interoceanic canal on the Nica- 
ragua route and to oppose the location of that canal on the 
Panama route. He showed more feeling on this subject than 
on anv other in which he took a special interest. He gathered 
information from every source, until he could present more as 
to the climatic and other natural conditions that was favorable 
to the Nicaragua route and unfavorable to the Panama route 
than any other man living. 

In one carefully prepared address after another he laid all 
this information before the Senate. In connection with it. 

1 

and as a part of the same investigation and work, he developed 
and presented all the legal aspects of the two propositions It 
seems impossible that anyone at his advanced age could have 



j2 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

performed such a great labor. It would not have been possible 
except only for the fact that he was so thoroughly equipped ' 
with knowledge, and had such a logical mind and such a fluency 
of speech that to address the Senate on such a familiar topic 
was really a relief rather than a labor. 

He never exulted over success, and seldom showed disap- 
pointment when defeated. 

The Nicaragua case was one of the exceptions to the general 
rule. In that instance he did show the keenest disappoint 
ment — almost despondency; not, however, because of anything 
personal to himself, but only because he thoroughly believed 
we had made a mistake amounting to an irreparable disaster in 
rejecting the Nicaragua and accepting the Panama route. 

It would have been to him gratifying in a personal sense 
to have been successful in a controversy in .which he was so 
thoroughly enlisted, but it can be safely said that as in that 
case, so in all others, he was patriotic enough to subordinate 
self to the public good. 

Probably every member of the Senate, on both sides of the 
Chamber, who differed from him in that matter regretted that 
his sense of duty compelled him to do so, for all felt that he 
had labored so zealously, consistently, self-sacrificinglv, and 
patriotically that in every personal sense he thoroughly merited 
a victory. 

It is impossible to recall his last years of service without at 
the same time recalling Senator Pettus, his colleague. Thev 
were widely different men in some respects, but they were both 
so venerable in fact as well as in age and appearance, and both 
were such typical representatives of the highest and best type 
of American citizenship, men of such probity, such uprightness, 
such scrupulous integrity, such general nobility of mind and 
character, and with all so thoroughly in harmony in all their 



Address of Mr. Foraker, of Ohio 7^ 

aspirations and in all their efforts that their State and the 
whole country might well be congratulated upon the high honor 
of having such representatives. 

They had both been officers of high rank in the Confederate 
army. They had distinguished themselves in that service as in 
every other they undertook, but they were also representatives 
of that highest and best sentiment of the Southern people 
which led them when their cause was lost to accept the situation 
in good faith, adapt themselves to its requirements, strive to 
bind up the wounds that had been inflicted, make a union of 
States in sentiment as well as in name, and bring about a 
common development of the whole country whereby the pros- 
perity, honor, and good name of the American nation might be 
advanced not only at home, but throughout the world. 

It will stand forever to the credit of Alabama that she con- 
tinued these two remarkable men in the public service until 
the end of their days. They have left a record of which their 
families and friends, their State, and the nation may always be 
proud. 



74 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Overman, of North Carouna 

.Mr. President: One by one the old landmarks of our political 
life are passing away; one by one the links which connect a 
glorious past with the present are sundered. The departed 
Senator in tribute to whose memory this day has been set apart 
bv reason of his great strength lived ten years and six beyond 
the three score and ten years spoken of by the psalmist as the 
allotted period for man's earthly existence. And though in the 
natural course of human events it was apparent that his life of 
usefulness and honor must soon be rounded to a peaceful close, 
yet his death came as a distinct shock to those who loved him 
well. It is given to few men to have received the measure of 
love and devotion accorded to him, not only by his own people, 
but by all who knew him. I served with him for four years in 
the Senate, sat around the table with him in the committee 
rooms, learned to know him and to love him in his daily walk 
of life, and it is with the profoundest respect and admiration for 
this noble example of a long and useful life that I am constrained 
on this occasion to pay the simple tribute of a few words to his 
memory. 

I will leave it to others who are more familiar with it to give 
the detailed history of his life— a life stretching almost through- 
out the length of one century and into another, and so full of 
usefulness and of good deeds that hardly a man of his native 
State but felt his death a personal loss. 

Senator Edmund Winston Pettus was cast in heroic mold— 
lun lie in stature, heroic in character, heroic in intellect. Des- 
tined bv nature to be a leader, a man of action and of strength, 



Address of Mr. Overman, of North Carolina -; 

His young life was cast in troublous times, and he earl) left his 
impression upon the history of his State. Such was their con- 
fidence in his ability and integrity that in times of peril he was 
more than once made almost the arbiter of the fate of his peo 
pie. Especially will his services be recalled during the dark 
davs that followed civil strife. When it seemed that in the 
heat of passion the South was to be delivered into the hands of 
the carpetbagger and a race but lately out of bondage, Senator 
Pettus, by his coolness and his courage, the leader of a small 
band of determined men, forced back the wave of anarchy and 
confusion that threatened to engulf them. As his was the lead- 
ing spirit in that period of struggle, so when the people of Ala- 
bama came into their own again there was nothing in their gift 
which he might not have had for the asking. But he was not 
attracted to a public career, preferring rather to go back to the 
practice of that profession to which he had devoted his life. 
Death has lifted him now above us, and we can view his char- 
acter in a clearer light. Looking backward we are impressed 
with the fact that his was a life well rounded to a fitting and 
harmonious close. From early manhood destined to play an 
important part in the affairs of his people and his State, his 
life was full of action as befitted his character. He early be- 
came a man of mark, but in the fullness of his life certain events 
and characteristics stand out with peculiar distinctness. 

Unlike his colleague, Senator Morgan, for whom his devotion 
was most marked, he won his fame not in the public forum, 
but in the private walks of life. Until his seventy-sixth year 
he had never held office except of a judicial character. Then 
he expressed a wish to round out his life in the Senate of the 
1 nited States. The people of Alabama, delighted to honor him 
whose life for more than three-quarters of a century had 1> en 
a blessing to his fellow-man, elected him to the highest office 



-6 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pctlus 

within their gift. He never had but one contest — his first 
election — when two great men of Alabama were both aspirants 
for the same honor. At each succeeding election by the legis- 
!ature he was unanimously reelected, and at the time of his 
death had vet eight years more to serve, having been already 
elected to succeed himself at the expiration of his term in 1909. 
In the Senate of the United States his influence was not 
measured bv the length of his service. He sprang at once into 
prominence' and became a national figure. Entering public life 
at an age when other men are ready to lay aside the active duties 
of life, without legislative experience, he yet speedily impressed 
himself upon this body. His familiarity with public affairs, 
his great legal ability and training, his devotion to duty, and 
his wonderful fund of common sense soon marked him as a man 
of mind and power, and the wisdom of his counsel was not 
unheeded by this bodv. His coolness and his self-control, his 
vast store of knowledge, and his power of command over men 
marked him a great leader either upon the battlefield or in the 
public forum. Had be entered the Senate earlier in life, had 
he been bred a parliamentarian, he would undoubtedly have 
attained the foremost rank and left his impress upon the affairs 
of the nation as he has upon the history of his State. 

Senator Pettus was not a politician. He despised hypocrisy 
and subterfuge. He never espoused a popular cause to curry 
favor with the masses, nor was it ever necessary for him to 
do so. Simple, straightforward, unaffected, of rugged honesty 
and sincerity of purpose, he followed the dictates of his own 
conscience without regard to popular approval or favor. And 
though he loved the people, yet he could not be swayed from 
the path of duty by false clamor or unhealthy public opinion. 
Born under the regime of the "Old South," imbued with the 
doctrine of State rights, loving the South, her people, and her 



Address of Mr. Overman, oj North Carolina 77 

traditions, with a fervor amounting to passion, he viewed with 
disfavor and suspicion every measure which seemed to him to 
point to a centralization of power in the hands of the Federal 
Government. 

Senator Pettus came of martial parentage. His mother was 
the daughter of Capt. Anthony Winston, of Virginia, a soldier 
of the Revolution. He served as a lieutenant in the war with 
Mexico, and when the irrepressible conflict came, at the first 
call for troops he marched away at the head of the Cahaba 
Rifles to offer his sword to the cause of the South. In many 
of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of the war General PETTUS 
displayed a quality of courage and a power of command that 
secured for him speedy promotion, and he rose to the rank of 
brigadier-general. As the leader of a forlorn charge his courage 
never wavered; in the deliberations of council of war his advice 
was ever marked by its wisdom; in the privations and hard- 
ships of a struggle that was growing rapidly more and more 
hopeless his devotion and his loyalty never faltered. Small 
wonder, then, that his people accorded to him a measure of love 
and devotion that has seldom been surpassed and that when the 
Grim Reaper should come there was not a fireside in Alabama 
that did not feel a personal loss. 

The early life of Senator Pettus was full of stirring inci- 
dents. As a soldier of two wars and a "forty-niner " he sought 
in these channels an outlet for the activity of a vigorous spirit. 
He was wont to say that his boyhood was inclined to be wild 
and rough. That he learned to curb this spirit and turn its 
activity into the channels of usefulness was due in great meas- 
ure to the influence of the gentlewoman who for sixty vears 
was his wife and companion — who bore with him every hard- 
ship and who took a gentle pride in the honors accorded him 
by a grateful people. Two characteristics stand out preemi- 



jS Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

nent in the life of Senator Pettus — his love and devotion to 
his familv and his fidelity to his friends. Imbued with the 
spirit of chivalry, with a high ideal of honor, a lover of the 
truth, he was ever on the side of right and justice and the 
cause of the weak found in him a steadfast champion. 

His life was strangely intertwined with that of his colleague 
whose death preceded his by a scant two months. We now 
recall with what solicitude he watched the failing strength of 
his life-long friend. From earliest boyhood in the little town 
of Cahaba, where they grew side by side into manhood, their 
lives flowed as twin currents until the discovery of gold in 
California drew the more adventurous spirit of Senator Pettus. 
Returning after two years, they both gave their best efforts to 
the cause of the South, and after the war both settled in Selma, 
where the stream of their lives, broken once, was reunited 
and flowed thus without interruption for nearly half a century. 
In June of 1907 Senator Pettus was called upon to follow the 
body of his friend to its last resting place. The current of their 
lives, thus rudelv broken, seemed to foreshadow his own 
approaching end. Returning from the grave of his life-long 
companion, surrounded by his family and his friends, he spoke 
of death and, though apparently still vigorous, of his own 
approaching end. Morgan was dead; he was soon to follow. 
He wanted no eulogies and no elaborate display when he should 
be laid to rest, but asked that the simple ceremonies of the 
Presbyterian Church should be read over him in his own home. 
And so it was. Scarcely yet had the flowers laid upon the tomb 
of his friend withered away when the people of Alabama were 
called to pay the last tribute to this other "grand old man." 
Beneath the trees of beautiful Live Oak Cemetery they together 
sleep the sleep that knows no waking. As in life they stood, so 
in death thev lie side by side, and to the memory of each the 



Address of Mr. Overman, of North Carolina jq 

people of a grateful Stale and nation have given that measure 
of love and devotion which is the meed of a life well spent and 
a race well run. 

Simple, straightforward, unassuming, unselfish to a degree, 
of rugged honesty and sincerity of purpose, and yet withal 
gentle as a woman, the life of Senator Pettus breathes the 
spirit of the old South, of a regime that is rapidly passing 
away. Like a granite pillar chiseled from his own native 
quarries, his life rises before us, lofty and massive and yet 
withal graceful. With its base standing enshrouded in mist — ■ 
the troubles and hardships of his early life — it rises in its 
grandeur above the clouds, the mists fall away, and sun-kissed 
it stands in the light of heaven, a monument of a glory that is 
past and a guide to that which is to be. 

The potentates on whom men gaze, 

When once their rule has reached its goal, 

Die into darkness with their days. 
But monarchs of the mind and soul, 

With light unfailing and unspent 

Illumine fame's firmament. 



So Monona! Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 

Mr. President: Morgan and Pettis of Alabama were two 
of Plutarch's men. They were unique, distinctive, heroic, 
achieving, characterized by traits peculiarly their own. Their 
long lives were filled with efficient services of good citizenship in 
both civic and military life. They were a noble pair, supple- 
ments and complements of each other in the diversity of their 
talents and attainments, and yet alike in congruing tempera- 
ment and in the devotion of their hearts and minds to the 
common good. As they were neighbors and friends of the 
town of Selma, in Alabama, so they were yokefellows in the 
Senate. 

It was a pleasing spectacle to behold the mutual cooperation, 
deference, and confidence with which they performed their 
labors. No one could see them without recognizing in their per- 
sonalities, which mark the expression of a people, that they were 
American men, and no one could know them without realizing 
that their Americanism was of that manly, broad, wholesome, 
and friendly type which communicated the instincts of freedom 
and fellowship. It was more than this. It was Americanism 
deeply rooted in the free institutions of the English-speaking 
people, that has budded upon them in our own Republic of 
many mansions the strongest, freest, and the most hopeful fabric 
of the world's history and aspiration. 

Some dav it is to be hoped the biographer will make faithful 
portraiture of the lives, the sen-ices, and the personal charac- 
teristics of these typical Americans. There would be found in 
them the graphic narrative of the great era in which they lived, 
and of the rare conditions and scenes of adventure, risk, hard- 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 81 

ship, trial, and tribulations through which they passed. It 
was not an era that can ever repeat itself, and although we are 
told that "The thing which hath been is the thing which shall 
be," it seems quite sure that while the philosophic truth may be 
preserved, in the current of nature it can never again assume 
the forms, shapes, and stirring incidents with which the past 
era of American history has been so deeply marked. .Some 
features of that era were unprecedented in the world's history, 
and this country now knows itself too well to admit the thought 
of its recurrence. 

As Morgan and Pettus were in life united, and in death but 
briefly divided, I will speak of them together. They were both 
my friends, whom I greatly honored and dearly loved. 

The>- were independent men. That great virtue of manly 
independence was seen in their whole life course. I have never 
known in the Senate two men who possessed more of this pure 
and lofty quality. 

Thy spirit, independence, let me share. 
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye — 

was the invocation which had been fully answered unto them. 

When they had opinions it required no effort on their part to 
state them openly and fearlessly. Truth of sincere conviction 
was their abiding guide. 

They were party men, such as are all of us in a Republic 
which is governed by party. Those who stay with party organ 
izations because thev believe that only through their unity and 
sympathy of action great and worthy ends can be accomplished 
have often to bow, for a time, at least, to both men and measures 
when thev are not in thorough consonance with them. No 
doubt this was sometimes the lot of MORGAN and Petti s, for 
it is the common lot and seems to be an inevitable feature of 
great political concerns; but none could be more scrupulous or 
75750—09 6 



S2 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

consistent than they in hewing to the line of great fundamental 
principles upon which this Government was founded. 

PETTUS, the older Senator, was born in Alabama in 1S21. The 
common school and Clinton College, in Tennessee, were the 
avenues of his approach to education. 

In that State Morgan was born in 1824, but in vouth he re- 
moved to Alabama, and there the lifelong friends alike entered 
the profession of the law — Pettus in 1842 and Morgan in 1845. 

The spirit of adventure was alive in the breast of voung 
Pettus. He entered in the war with Mexico as a lieutenant, 
and in 1849 rode with the great stream of adventurers to the 
golden fields of California. 

Pettus was 75 years of age when he came to this Chamber. 
He brought with him the ripeness of his years, and the natural 
increasing disposition to dispense with things extraneous, re- 
mote, or discursive. He was not a frequent speaker, but when 
he spoke he drove right ahead at the pith of the matter in a 
plain, common-sense fashion. His speeches were often illus- 
trated by some apt adage, and quaint, mellow humor would now 
and then fix attention and attract concurrence when prosaic 
details would only weary. 

< If the old Revolutionary Virginia stock — his grandfather, 
Anthony Winston, having served as a captain in the War of 
Independence — he preserved in his own character and career 
the marked ancestral traits. 

Morgan entered the Senate on the 41I1 of March, 1877, at the 
age of 55, a time astir with the last great commotions which 
were involved in the aftermath of war. From that time forth 
he took part in all the great debates in this Chamber and did 
efficient and successful work on manv committees. He had great 
knowledge of foreign affairs, of Indian affairs, of the Consti- 
tution, of the laws, and of the literature of this countrv, and, 
indeed, of all questions that came before the Senate in his time. 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 83 

He read much. His memory was marvelous — "wax to r< ci 1 
and marble to retain." No matter what the subject was on 
which he fixed attention, he poured forth copiously the streams 
of his knowledge. His mind was so suggestive that he turned 
the subject in all lights and shades in which it could be re- 
garded, and when he finished his speech a contribution had 
been made to the literature of the subject which would become 
the resort of all who desired to stir their own reflections or to 
inform themselves fully upon it. Nevertheless, when his mind 
was aroused by the sharpness of debate, he could be as salient 
as he could be philanthropic, as witty or as humorous as he could 
be argumentative and instructive, and the flashes of his pene- 
trative wisdom have often illumined and felicitated the Senate. 

We can not think of Morgan without thinking also of the 
Isthmian Canal, to which he devoted so many years of his life. 
No man in this country knew more on that subject than he did. 
No man more sedulously studied or more fully expounded it. 
None more thoroughly .believed in the good it would bring to 
America and to mankind. As Maury was to the science of the 
ocean tides and currents and to the courses of the merchantmen 
that cover the oceans, so Morgan was to the Isthmian Canal 
thai will unite them. 

That his great work did not eventuate through the particular 
plan which he commended was a! deep disappointment to him, 
but he took up the plan which others preferred, and with loyal 
spirit continued to the end in view with irrepressible and un- 
abated spirit. 

Neither can we think of Pettus without remembering his last 
good-natured and successful plea to the Senate to remove a relic 
of civil strife that remained as a bar to the recovery of certain 
claims in which the South is interested. Its aptness quelled 
opposition. 



84 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

Morgan was of a slenderer build than Pettus, of manly and 
graceful bearing, his form crowned with a noble head and dome- 
like brow, and with fine features which suggest to the mind the 
lawyer, the statesman, the judge, and the Senator. 

Pettus was a stalwart. His commanding figure was a pillar 
of power. His was a tall, stout, well-knit frame, large limbed 
and well proportioned. His figure intimated the soldier who 
rode with the Ironsides and would cleave with the broadsword 
in battle. A powerful brain filled his massive, Websterian head, 
and his strong features, beaming with benign intelligence, had 
that noble expression of the St. Bernard dog, which bespeaks 
alike courage and generosity. 

Both of these men were soldiers. Morgan started in the war 
of 1 861 as a private, becoming first major, and then lieutenant- 
colonel, in the Fifth Alabama Infantry, under Col. Robert E. 
Rodes, afterwards the brilliant major-general of the Confed- 
eracy, who fell in the desperate battle of Winchester. 

Pettus about the same time entered the Twentieth Alabama 
Infantry as a major, became its lieutenant-colonel, and subse- 
quently a brigadier-general for deeds of great daring in actual 
conflict upon the field. 

Morgan, after creditable service in the first great battle of the 
war at Bull Run, and afterwards in others, rose to a similar dis- 
tinction, and in whatever line of vocation they appeared they 
showed that they were natural-born leaders of men. Thev were 
borne to the front by moral and intellectual gravitation, just as 
surelv as natural gravitation moves the world and the planets. 

They were both lawyers; lawyers of learning and of manifold 
abilities; of assiduous application and successful practice; well 
equipped and well capable to dispute with the first foemen of 
the bar; indefatigable workers, patient, but bold, and conscien- 
tious advocates, each an honor to his profession. 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 85 

Morgan loved the lore of the law, traversed its broad fields, 
explored its recesses, and found delight in its philosophies. 

Pettus delighted more in the rugged maxims hewn from 
life, although he was lacking in nothing of reading or of reflec- 
tion that furnishes the good lawyer with his armor or enables 
him to do his part in the lists of controversy before the bench 
or before the jury. 

They were domestic men. To our race the home is the capi- 
tal. As it will have peace if it have to fight for it, it will have 
a home though it have to wander over the seas, mountains, and 
deserts to build it. 

The home was to them the first consideration, and in their 
homes thev were the revered fathers and heads of families. 
They were husbands who found under their roofs the sacred 
and enchanted castle that held and guarded their treasures. 
There the charms of life solaced and rewarded their labors. 
There they found that happiness which may be sought through 
the boiling waves of ocean, by the midnight lamp, or through 
the tempest of the battle, but which can only be found 'mid 
the quiet scenes where love wields its scepter. 

They were orators who could stir men's blood; debaters who 
eould hold their ground in any intellectual conflict; fellow-men 
who could do the man's part in council, field, or forum; nota- 
ble specimens of those who can write, speak, and fight; but 
above all they were peacemakers — never fomenters of strife 
between neighbors, between races, or between sections. 

They were patriots. In the unhappy times of sectional aber- 
ration and alienation they were true to what thev were and to 
what their people were; and men thus true to themselves could 
not possibly be false to any cause or to any man. When their 
country was cemented in the whole unbroken nation by the 



86 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan ami Pettus 

blood and sacrifices of the brave who fought on each side, they 
dedicated to it their faithful sen-ice. They had nothing in 
common with the worm that bites itself in the dust; they 
accepted and they did the best they could with what had come 
to pass. "God decides; let that suffice." These golden words 
of Robert E. Lee were their intimate thoughts. They loved the 
whole country and all its people, and nothing human was alien 
to their hearts. Out of that love (lowed their service, and in 
thai service all men knew that they "bore" each for himself 
" without reproach the grand old name of gentleman." As they 
honored all, so in the equity of nature all honored them. 

They had civic courage, a rarer virtue than that of the sea 
or the field of battle. They did not ask is this the popular side 
of the question, but only is this the right side. That question 
answered to their conscience and fixed their course. Men who 
quail not before a serried hostile line or an imminent deadlv 
breach often quail before an opposing multitude. But Morgan 
and Pettus did not quail, but went their own gait wheresoever 
duty led them. 

They were statesmen — statesmen in a very high, a very use- 
ful, and a very efficient sense; old-fashioned American states- 
men, deeply imbued with the teachings of history and waVned 
bv them of the rocks on which nations have been shattered — 
statesmen not only in studious and penetrating reflection upon 
the conditions of the country, but upon the questions of foreign 
policy it has to deal with; statesmen in knowledge of its multi- 
farious and variegated interests; statesmen of the conserving 

g 1 sense which must be employed to keep in conciliation 

and in common spirit the immense masses of widespread regions, 
differing in climates, productions, and in all natural features, 
whether of field, or forest, or desert, or mine, or river, or lonely 



Address <>/ Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 87 

wilderness, or crowded city; statesmen, too, knowing the com- 
plexity of racial and industrial problems which arc Before a 
people consisting of the old-time populations of colonial stock, 
side by side, and with the vast impourings of immigration from 
all corners of the globe. 

To hold such an immense mass in the balances of well- 
adjusted laws and to transfuse it into a homogeneous whole 
is a stupendous thing to contemplate, and it is the marvel of the 
world that so far our unprecedented and unmatched Constitu- 
tion has availed to preserve our inheritance and to keep alive 
here the hope and faith that the future may prove worthy of the 
past. A greater people have never yet appeared upon this 
globe than the Americans, and it must solemnize any just mind 
to realize the responsibility which comes to it with the injunc- 
tion to take heed that no ill befall the Republic. 

Statesmanship is sometimes exemplified by great measures, 
but most great measures are the products of many minds, 
crystallized into expression by the few, and perhaps associated 
with the name of one who presented them but took little part 
in their molding. As an instance I may cite the misnamed 
Sherman law. Senator John Sherman proposed a bill for 
which Senator Hoar offered a substitute which was adopted. 
Mr. Hoar humorously remarks in his memoirs, "It was so 
called (Sherman law) for no other reason that I can think of. 
except that Mr. Sherman had nothing to do with framing it." 
But the statesman, like the good citizen who constantly instills 
by good example as well as by precept the great stable and 
fundamental doctrines which conjure moderation of conduct 
and fidelity to' principle and through them confirm confidence 
and make peace, renders a service to his country and to man- 
kind which can not be overestimated. 



88 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

PETTUS and Morgan rendered such a service not only to 
their people at home, but to the whole country, and they con- 
stantly worked for their country with the hope and aspiration — 

That her fair form may stand and shine, 

Make bright our days and light our dreams, 

Putting to shame with light divine 
The falsehood of extremes. 

Thev were never trimmers. They stood four square to all 
the winds that blow, and in their State they were as patriarchs 
in Israel. 

They were not money lovers or money seekers. They were 
not hustlers, rushing hither and thither to get ahead of any- 
body else or to get unto themselves hasty riches. They had 
time to do everything that was for them to do, but no time to 
waste for the frail, flitting, and adventitious > things upon which 
many set great store. Like the princes of their race, "I serve" 
was the watchword of their instinct and ambition, and so faith- 
fullv did thev serve that those served by them felt so safe in 
their hands that they never questioned their servants, but were 
proud to serve in turn the things they aimed at, which were 
their country, God, and truth. 

The tender and forceful speech in which Pettus — when 
advocating increase of salary — depicted the life of Morgan, its 
possibilities and its renunciation of riches for public service, 
made deep impression on all who heard it. 

Tears do not become the memory of Morgan and Pettus. 
Mourning is not the badge which we should wear for them. 
Rather bring the flowers of rejoicing, tribute that they did so 
many things so well and that they acquitted themselves like 
men. The country has sent back their bodies and consigned 
them to rest amongst the loyal hearts of the people of Alabama, 
whom they loved and whom they served so well. But above 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia So 

the ceremonious tributes of State- rises the high honor of a whole 
people for patriots who were true to every loyal instinct and 
affection. Length of days had been given them. Their 
strength endured until the sun hung low in the western sky. 
Then their work w-as done. At evening's close their hour had 
come. "Well done, good and faithful servants," was the 
'parting salutation of all who worked with and of all for whom 
they had worked. And so they rest from their labors, and their 
works do follow them. 



0,0 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettiu 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York. 

Mr. President: When a man dies in youth or in his prime 
with years of usefulness before him, the sentiment is grief or 
despair. Every year which one enjoys in health and the full 
possession of all his faculties beyond the Psalmist's limit of life 
is a source of gratitude. If he is still at fourscore in the f< ire 
front of the battle when the summons comes, the event elicits 
reminiscence, record, and applause. 

Alabama, through her two venerable and great Senators, 
Morgan and Pettus, had in this body a unique distinction. 
These two representatives, or as they might be called, am- 
bassadors of a sovereign State, one 83 and the other 86, and bv 
reason of their ability and power destined to reelection which 
would carry them both toward their century, present a picture 
which has no parallel in our history. Senator Morgan was in 
the front rank of the statesmen of the Republic. His great 
ability, vast acquirements, profound erudition, indomitable 
industry, self-sacrificing devotion to the public welfare, and 
rare eloquence, have placed him in a niche of the temple of 
American fame. He possessed an almost unequaled command 
of English pure and undefiled, and in giving utterance to his 
thought it was done with such correct expression that after a 
running debate in which he took a principal part and which 
would last a day, his sentences were so perfect that his speech 
required neither review nor correction. More than any other 
of our statesmen he resembled the great English writer and 
orator, Edmund Burke. His colleague, Senator Pettus, was 
a good lawyer and an able judge, but preeminently, in all his 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York gi 

characteristics, the soldier. The friendship and interdependence 
of these associate representatives of Alabama upon each other 
and their daily intercourse was one of the most interesting and 
attractive pictures in the Senate. The General followed with 
awe and admiration the lead of the veteran and distinguished 
Senator, and the slender and fragile Senator seemed to lean 
with reverential regard upon the vigorous, aggressive, and 
gigantic General, but at the moment when their State seemed 
unanimously resolved to keep them here without limit as to 
time the summons came to both, and they died as they had 
lived, neighbors and friends, possessing to the last the full 
vigor of their physical and mental powers. 

Such an event inspires many reflections upon youth and age. 
The tribute of the world is given wholly to youth. Its admira- 
tion is for early achievement. It is apt to dismiss age or be 
impatient that it lingers upon the stage. I remember a dis- 
tinguished English statesman remarking to me with disappoint- 
ment and disgust after Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian campaign 
had electrified the country, "There is no use waiting for old 
men to die. After 70" they go on forever." The brightest 
pages of history, the most brilliant passages in oratory, and the 
highest flights of rhetorical expression are devoted to the 
achievements of precocious genius. In our day everything is 
subjected to the merciless analysis of science and research. The 
most valued traditions of childhood are shattered by the cold 
processes of historical delving. William Tell becomes a myth 
and Arnold Winkelried an exaggerated tradition. By the same 
bloodless dissection alienists and physiologists are now endeav- 
oring to prove that in the formation and growth of the brain 
an unnatural and unhealthy early development tends either to 
degeneracy or, in rare instances, where there is great natural 
power, to extraordinary and morbid maturity in infancy and 



Q2 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

youth. It is the inspiration and despair of the schools that 
Alexander the Great was a wise ruler at 18 and conquered 
all Greece at 20. At 26 he wept because there were no more 
worlds to conquer and died at 30. His achievements and his 
tragic death were alike due to an abnormal brain which made 
him meet the characterization of Pope, "The vouth who all 
things but himself subdued.'' In this he stands in marked 
contrast with Caesar, who matured more slowly and naturally, 
and was at the zenith of his powers when assassinated at 
56, and of whom Pope also said, "Caesar was the world's 
great master and his own." Hannibal was in sight of the 
fulfillment of the vow to his father of the destruction of 
Rome when he was 31, but then his genius seemed to decay. 
Napoleon had reached the zenith of his powers at 35 and at 
Waterloo was the victim of premature senility. Byron's genius 
began to fade in his early thirties, and he died before he was 
41). Pitt was prime minister at 25, and the maturity of his 
gifts was under 40. Goethe, the great German genius, and one 
of the greatest the world ever saw, on the other hand, grew nor- 
mally to maturity and was no exception to nature's laws. The 
work which gave him universal recognition, "Iphigenia," was 
written when he was 37, but his immortality is largely based 
upon "Faust," which was published when he was 55. He lived 
without any abatement of mind until he was 83. Thiers, 
having accomplished a world of literary work and done much 
political service, saved France from total dismemberment at 71 
and remained three years after in the presidency to consolidate 
his work. Yon Moltke at 71 had become one of the most famous 
generals of the centuries, while Bismarck late in life consolidated 
the German people into one Empire under the great sovereign 
who wielded the scepter vigorously until past 90. Gladstone's 
most triumphant campaign, and one of the most remarkable in 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 03 

English history, was -won by a stumping tour of unequaled 
vigor and versatility when he was 84. The dead line of 50, 
which had been the rule of the past, no longer exists in our da) . 
Shakespeare divided life into seven ages: 

At first the infant, 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
Then the winning school-boy, with his sauiki 
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail 
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, 
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
Seeking the bubble reputation 

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, 
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd, 
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern instances; 
So he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, 
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, 
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide 
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, 
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all 
That ends this strange, eventful history, 
Is second childishness and- mere oblivion, 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans_taste, sans everything. 

But Shakespeare died at 50. 

Mr. President, we have only to look about this Senate to note 
the marvelous difference between Shakespeare's period and our 
own. It was then the survival of the fittest who possessed the 
vigor of constitution and strength which could resist the pesti- 
lence, plague, and disease common to the insanitary conditions 
of the home, uncleanliness of the person, and wild excesses and 



94 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

intemperance of the times. According to Shakespeare's view, 
the lean and slippered pantaloon came between 50 and 6o, and 
second childhood, "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every- 
thing," between 60 and 70. But in our day the leaders in the 
professions, the captains of industry, and the controlling minds 
in public life are largely those who look with equanimity upon 
three score and ten. 

The life of Senator Pettus is one of those American careers 
which are the perennial inspirations of our youth. Equipped 
with a vigorous constitution and a good education as his only 
capital, he began the battle of life with an optimistic cheerful- 
ness and indomitable perseverance which were his characteris- 
tics for the succeeding sixty-five years. He was admitted to 
the bar in 1842, and was in the active practice of his profession, 
except when on the bench or in wars, for sixty-four years. He 
early won the favor of a large constituency, and two years after 
his admission to the bar, at the age of 23, was elected solicitor 
for the seventh circuit of Alabama. Heredity is either the curse 
or the blessing of us all. The dominant characteristic in the 
blood may skip several generations to ultimately assert itself 
with double force. It was the grandfather, who was a soldier 
of the Revolution, whose militant and virile spirit was reincar- 
nated in his grandson. The call to arms in the Mexican war 
drew him instantly from the brilliant career upon which he had 
entered in legal and political life and he marched to Mexico as 
a lieutenant of an Alabama company. The stirring experiences 
of that campaign, with its battles and marches, its assaults and 
victories, were exquisite happiness to the young and enthusias- 
tic soldier. 

He returned from the war at the time when the country was 
excited, as it had never been before, by the gold discoveries in 
California. The romance and perils of the West appealed over- 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 95 

whelmingly to this adventurous spirit. That he did not have 
the money for this expensive trip was no obstacle to a man to 
whom obstacles were invitations. He started on horseback and 
found his way across the Great Plains of the West when its 
trails were infested by bands of hostile Indians. When he 
arrived the situation did not interest him. His was not the 
nature to indure hardships and the wild life of a mining camp 
of that period simply for gold. Glory was his ambition, gold 
only of value so far as it might help him to attain that end. 
The voyages and marches of the Forty-niners are a picturesque 
chapter in the story of the settlement and development of our 
Territories. They were practical Argonauts, whose search had 
its reward for some in fortunes greater than were possible to 
the seekers of the Golden Fleece, but for most of them bitter 
disappointment and unmarked graves. The sordid side of these 
early struggles on the golden coast repelled this chivalric knight 
and we find him soon returned to renewed activities at the bar 
and in the public life of his State. He had been brought up 
in the strictest school of State rights. The resolutions of 1781; 
were his political gospel and John C. Calhoun his political guide. 
One of his last acts in the Senate was to vote against the railroad 
rate bill, notwithstanding the public sentiment in its favor, 
because he believed that it violated in principle his fundamental 
beliefs in the rights and sovereignty of the States. He was 
among the earliest to enlist for the war in the Confederate army, 
and believed as thoroughly in the righteousness of his cause as 
did his patriot grandfather in that of the Revolution. 

I lis commanding figure made him an ideal soldier. He was 
elected a major of his regiment, but his gallantry upon many 
bloody battlefields soon won him the stars of a brigadier-general. 
His impetuosity and daring made him a prisoner of war, but 
he received the consideration of his captors which gallant soldiers 



o6 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

always pay to heroic enemies against whom have gone the 
fortunes of the fight. The civil war ended, he again resumed 
the activities of peace. Having vigorously and conscientiously 
done the work of his laborious profession and accepted many 
honors from his fellow-citizens, he thought that at 75 he would 
like to retire to the dignity and congenial duties of a federal 
judge, with its permanency of office, securing the pleasures of 
comfortable and serene old age, but the political powers of his 
State hurt his pride and aroused his spirit by informing him 
that he was too old. This stirred the soldier to conflict, 
and with the answer, "If I am too old to be a judge, I am 
voung enough to be a United States Senator," he entered a 
contest before the people for_ the place. He broke down all 
opposition, and overthrowing the leaders of his party captured 
the imagination and support -of the people, and at 76 was 
triumphantly elected Senator of the United States from the 
State of Alabama. When the time for his reelection came he 
was 83 years of age, but there was no opposition, and his 
triumph was complete. It was one of his most gratifying 
recollections that his second election cost only Si, the legal fee 
for his certificate. He was reelected at the end of his second 
for a third term, which, if he had lived, would have carriec him 
to the age of 95. There is no such record in the whole history 
of the Senate. 

I served with him on the Committee on the Judiciary. He 
never missed a meeting, and his reports upon the questions 
referred to him as a subcommittee were not only able and judi- 
cial, but possessed a picturesque originality and humor which 
gave them the flavor of that Elizabethan literature of which he 
had been all his life an ardent student. His humor was resist- 
less, and we all remember the occasions when the driest debate 
was suddenly lifted into life and his side enormously helped by 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 97 

the ripple of laughter which disturbed this august assemblage 
at one of his sallies. As impregnable were his opinions, so 
unshakable were his friendships, and he would make any sacri- 
fice to aid or defend those whom he loved. 

Side by side in the old churchyard in the village of Selma 
lie these great statesmen of Alabama, not of Alabama alone, 
but of the United States. As the years go by that will become 
sacred ground and a mecca for the youth of the South who 
would get inspiration for great careers in the civil or military 
life of their country. The Senators who were privileged to 
serve with Morgan and PETTUS unite in paying to their mem- 
ories the deepest and tenderest tributes of respect and admira- 
tion. Long after we are gone, among the cherished traditions 
of this body will be the recollection of the fives, the genius, 
the work, and the picturesque personality and originality of 
these historical figures fighting back death and serving their 
country when past fourscore years, and dying, as they had lived, 
together. 

Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, I want to express the regret 
of my colleague and myself that the Senator from Georgia [Mr. 
Clay] was prevented by sickness from paying a tribute to the 
late Senator Pettus. 

I want also to thank, in the name of all the people of Alabama, 
the Senators on both sides who have spoken so eloquently and 
so affectionately of the dead Senators from Alabama. 

Mr. President, I move that as a further mark of respect the 
Senate adjourn 

The motion was unanimously agreed to, and (at 3 o'clock and 
20 minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned until Monday, April 20, 
1908, at 12 o'clock meridian. 
75750—09 7 



g8 Proceedings of the House 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 

Monday, December 2, igo". 

A message from the vSenate, by Mr. Parkinson, its reading 
clerk, announced that the Senate had passed the following 
resolutions : 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard, with profound sorrow, of the death 
of the Hon. John T. Morgan, late a Senator from the State of Alabama. 

l\: ui/i'iil, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolution'; to 
the House of Representatives. 

Also: 

A', wived, That the Senate has heard, with deep regret, of the death of 
the Hon Edmund W. Pettus, late a Senator from the State of Alabama. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy«of these resolutions to 
the House of Representatives. 

h'i ;olv( .1, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the dea ised 
Senators whose deaths have just been announced, the Senate do now 
adjourn. 

Mr. Underwood. Mr. Speaker, it is my painful duty to 
announce the death of the two distinguished Senators of the 
United States from Alabama, the Hon. John Tyler Morgan 
and the Hon. Edmund Winston Pettus. On a later day 
I shall ask the House to set aside a day in which suitable 
encomiums on the great work of these eminent statesmen 
may be paid. 1 now desire to offer the following resolutions, 
which I send to the Clerk's desk, and move their adoption. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives has heard with profound 
sorrow of the death of Hon. John Tyler Morgan and Hon. Edmund 
Winston Pettus, Senators of the United States from the State of Alabama. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate 
and send a copy thereof to the families of the deceased. 



Proceedings oj the House 99 

The question was taken, and the resolutions were unanimously 

adopted. 

Tuesday, March 31, 1908. 

Mr. Underwood. Mr. Speaker, 1 ask unanimous consent for 
the present consideration of the resolution which I send to the 
Clerk's desk. 

The Speaker. The gentleman from Alabama asks unanimous 
consent for the present consideration of the following resolution, 
which the Clerk will repent. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives shall at 2 o'clock on Satur- 
day, April 25, 1908, consider resolutions upon the life, character, and public 
services of the Hon. John- T. Morgan and the Hon. Edmund W. Pettus, 
late Senators from the State of Alabama 

The Speaker. Is there objection. [After a pause.] The 
Chair hears none. 

The question was taken, and the resolution was agreed to. 

Monday, April 20, 1908. 
A message from the Senate, by Mr. Crockett, its reading 
clerk, announced that the Senate had passed the following 

resolutions: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hons. John T. Morgan and Edmund W Pettus. late Senators 
from the State of Alabama. 

Rescind, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
Senators, the business of the Senate be now suspended to enable their 
associates to pay proper tribute to their high characters and distinguished 
public services. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
Senators, the Senate do now adjourn. 



ioo Proceedings of the House 

Saturday, April 25, igo8. 

Mr. Underwood. Mr. Speaker, before the vote is taken, I 
have a request to make. The eulogies on Senators Morgan and 
Pettus take place this afternoon, and I have a resolution in 
my hand which I intend to offer, and ask unanimous consent for 
its present consideration, but before doing that I desire to ask 
unanimous consent that gentlemen who may not be present 
to-day may insert or extend their remarks in reference to the 
eulogies. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The gentleman from Alabama 
asks unanimous consent that Members may extend their re- 
marks on the subject of the eulogies on Hon. John T. Morgan 
and Hon. Edmund W. Pettus, which are to be considered this 
day. Is there objection? [After a pause.] The Chair hears 
none. • 

Mr. Underwood. Now, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous con- 
sent of the present consideration of the resolutions which I send 
to the Clerk's desk. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The gentleman from Alabama 
asks unanimous consent for the present consideration of the 
following resolutions, which the Clerk will report. 

There was no objection. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House now proceed to pay tribute to the memory of 
Hon. John T. Morgan and Hon. Edmund W. Pettus, late Senators from 
the State of Alabama. 

Resolved, That as a special mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
Senators and in recognition of their distinguished public services, the House, 
at the conclusion of the exercises to-day, shall stand in recess until 1 1 
o'clock and 30 minutes a. m., on Monday next 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate 

Resolved, That the Clerk send a copy of these resolutions to the families 
of the deceased Senators. 



Proceedings of the House 101 

Mr. Williams. Mr. Speaker, one word. I wish to say that 
owing to the peculiar situation in which we find ourselves, the 
occasion with which we are very soon to be confronted, that I 
shall not call for the yeas and nays upon this motion. 

Mr. Mann. This is not a time for any partisanship, as every- 
body admits. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to 
the resolutions. 

The question was taken, and the resolutions were unani- 
mously agreed to. 

Mr. Underwood. Mr. Speaker. I ask that the Clerk read the 
special order for to-day. 

The Speaker pro tempore. The Clerk will report the special 
order. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives shall, at 2 o'clock on Sat- 
urday, April 25, 1908, consider resolutions upon the life, character, and 
public services of the Hon. John T. Morgan and the Hon. Edmund W. 
Pettus, late Senators from the State of Alabama (Resolution adopted 
in the House March 31, 1908.) 

The Speaker pro tempore. Will the gentleman from Ala- 
bama [Mr. Taylor] take the chair? 

Mr. Taylor, of Alabama, took the chair 



102 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
Address of Mr. Underwood, of Alabama , 

Mr. Speaker: Alabama mourns to-day two great men, John 
Tyler Morgan and Edmund Winston Pettus. Like two 
giant oaks in the forest of statesmen, the lives of these two men 
have run contemporaneous with the history of Alabama. Both 
were born within half a decade of their State's natal day. They 
grew to manhood amidst the trials, hardships, and adventures 
of frontier life, when a great portion of Alabama was still a wilder- 
ness and before the Indian tribes were moved from the State. 

Their early manhood was spent in the prosperous days of an 
antebellum civilization, when cotton was king and the land was 
new, when a man's honor was valued more than his gold, when 
work, honesty, and courage could obtain every opportunity in 
life. 

From these golden days of peace and plenty, almost within 
the space of a flash of lightning, their lives were encompassed 
by the turmoils, dangers, and strifes of the civil war. Then 
each drew his sword in defense of the State, and for gallantry 
on the field of battle each returned home, when peace came 
again, wearing the single star, the insignia of a brigadier- 
general of the Confederate army 

Then came into their lives the dark, gloomy days of recon- 
struction, of poverty, of racial strife, of destroyed homes, of 
dishonored courts — the days when lawlessness reigned su- 
preme and protection to life and property was uurecked of 
under the misused law of the land/ It was through these ter- 
rible times that these two men stood together as pillars of 



Address of Mr. Underwood, of Alabama 10} 

strength to their neighbors in their sufferings and distress, and 
as pillars of light to lead their State from the sloughs of dis 
honor and corruption back to the high ground of honor, peace, 
and protection. 

They lived to see their State, in their declining years, through 
their guidance, restored to Caucasian rule and prosperity and 
happiness return to the farms and cities. The development of 
the great mineral resources of north Alabama advanced their 
State to the first rank of the manufacturing as well as the 
agricultural States of the Union. They lived together for 
eighty-odd years. They fought together on battlefields of war 
and strife; on fields of law and rhetoric; in times of hardship 
and danger; in times of peace and plenty. 

They died together, honored and loved by all their fellow 
countrymen, each bearing the high commission of a United 
States Senator as a badge of honor conferred bv a grateful 
people on its two most worthy citizens. 

What an era to live through! What times tney were to make 
character! How many opportunities were there for the great 
to rise and the weak to fall in those eightv years? Will any 
man ever live through such changing times again? Will Ala- 
bama again produce two such worthy sons? 

Senator Morgan was born in Athens, Tenn., on the 20th day 
of June, 1824. He came to Alabama to live when he was 9 
years old, and received most of his education in the State of 
his adoption. He was admitted to the bar to practice law 
when he was 21 years old, and continued in the practice for 
thirty-two years, until he was elected to the Senate of the 
United States. He was a Presidential elector in i860 and 
voted for Breckinridge and Lane. He was a member of the 
state convention that proposed the ordinance of secession. He 
joined the Confederate army in May, 1861, and rose from a 



104 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

private soldier successively through the grades of major, 
lieutenant-colonel, and colonel to the rank of brigadier- 
general. As a Presidential elector from Alabama he voted for 
Tilden and Hendricks in 1876. He was elected to the United 
States Senate in 1877, and continued to represent his State in 
that Chamber of the Congress until his death. 

Senator Pettus died in harness at the age of 86 years, the 
senior Senator in age in the Senate, and one of the most inter- 
esting figures that has ever appeared in public life. He was born 
in Limestone County, Ala. ; was educated in the common schools 
of the State and at Clinton College in Tennessee. He studied 
law; was admitted to the bar to practice when 21 years of age; 
was elected solicitor of the seventh judicial circuit of Alabama 
within two years after he came to the bar; went with a party 
of neighbors to California in 1849 on horseback; served as a 
lieutenant in the Mexican war, and was judge of the seventh 
Alabama circuit from 1855 to 1858. He entered the Confed- 
erate army as major of the Twentieth Alabama Infantry in 
1 86 1, and was soon after promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, and 
in 1863 was made a brigadier-general for leading the troops of 
a Texas battalion to retake a salient of the works in which 
the Union forces had found a formidable lodgment. Senator 
Pettus was without military training, but he was the highest 
type of military soldier, always ready and courageous, fearless 
of danger, and able to rise above adversitv. 

For three decades after the civil war he refused to hold office, 
and he was 75 years old when the Alabama legislature first 
elected him to the Senate. He was twice thereafter elected 
without opposition, and died with eight years yet to serve. 

Senator Pettus was a man of strong convictions, the growth 
of years of experience; he was both wise and courageous as a 
public servant. From the first he took a prominent position 



Address of Mr. Underwood, of Alabama 105 

in the Senate, and possessed the confidence and respect of his 
colleagues at all times. 

The passing away of these two great men marks the close 
of an era ; they came down to us from times that have gone — 
from a civilization that has passed away. They stood like great 
trees on a mountain peak that have breasted the storms of 
centuries, and stand as grim, old sentinels of an age that has 
passed. 

Thev have gone from us; new officers command the ship of 
state; and new soldiers are here to answer duty's call; but the 
names of Morgan and Pettus will go resounding down the path 
of time, marking the road to patriotism, courage, honor, and 
statesmanship for generations of Alabamians yet to come 



io6 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Craig, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker: Having had the honor of living since my birth 
in the same town with both General MORGAN and General 
Pettus and having always thought of them together, I trust 
the House will grant me the high privilege of saying something 
about both of them. 

On one of the stone pillars supporting the gate leading into 
the cemetery in which both of these illustrious men sleep is a 
tablet upon which is this inscription : 

They are not dead who live in the hearts of those they loved 

How fitting an inscription and how applicable to our two late 
Senators. Well might it be said of them they are not dead, 
but live in the hearts of a grateful people, who loved them and 
delight to honor their memory. 

The lives of Senator Morgan and Senator Pettus were so 
closely interwoven that they came to be thought of together as 
almost the last representatives of the old style of statesmen. 
The people whom they represented never in any way showed 
or had any preference for one over the other, but loved and 
honored both alike. When but young men they practiced law 
in the same little town of Cahaba, now itself only a memory, 
and in later life they both moved to Selma, in the same county, 
where they lived for forty years or more. When the day came 
for every true patriot to take up arms in defense of Alabama 
and the South we find them among the first to enlist. Alike 
they started at the bottom of the ranks, and, alike, they were 
promoted time after time for bravery and efficiency until each 
was a brigadier-general. When the war was ended they both. 



Address of Mr. Craig, of Alabama 107 

like Cincinnatus of old, laid down the sword and returned to 
their peaceful avocations to do each his part in rebuilding the 
apparently prostrate South. Together they labored in that 
cause and together helped to lead their people through the dark 
days of reconstruction. So nobly did they serve their State as 
private citizens that first General Morgan and then General 
Pettus was sent to represent their Commonwealth in the high- 
est branch of the National Legislature. So, together again, 
they labored, always untiringly, always with the highest degree 
of efficiency, always well, always honorably for the State and 
the nation which had claimed for their own the major part of 
the lives of both of these magnificent American citizens. Yes, 
together they had served, in one way or another, for more 
than the ordinary lifetime, and almost together they died, and 
lie to-day in the same cemetery in the beautiful city of Selma 
not more than a hundred yards apart. How fitting and appro- 
priate it is, then, Mr. .Speaker, that they should be considered 
here together to-day. To pay a tribute to one of them is but 
to eulogize the other, for in all that goes to make men great, in 
capacity, in devotion to duty, and integrity, they were alike; 
and yet so different in so many respects. 

General Pettus towered above his colleagues in physical 
stature; he was of massive build and rugged countenance, and 
deliberate in all that he did and said. Though profoundly 
learned, he was a man of few words. He was possessed of a 
remarkable sense of humor and a sparkling wit, though always 
of serious mien. A most delightful companion, though seem- 
ingly austere; blunt of speech, but filling his remarks with 
wisdom and force. In argument or debate, deliberate in 
everything, but putting so much force in few words that every 
blow was the blow of a sledge hammer, and every remark, though 
not eloquent, was delivered in such forceful manner and backed 



108 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

by such wisdom that conviction was invariably carried to the 
hearts of his hearers. His early life of campaign and adventure 
made of him more a strong man of action than anything else. 

General Morgan was of slighter build and shorter stature 
than General Pettus; he was quick and versatile, a conversa- 
tionalist of powers to charm his hearers, even upon the most 
ordinary subjects; a speaker of eloquence and forcefulness 
unsurpassed. A student from his childhood, his four years in 
the civil war, filled with hardships and adventure though they 
were, failed to leave him more a soldier than a scholar, and he 
continued to his death preeminently happy when exploring the 
realms of knowledge, or enlightening an audience with his rich 
flow of eloquence upon important topics, of which he was 
always a complete master. 

SENATOR JOHN T. MORGAN 

.Senator Morgan was born in Athens, Tenn., on June 20, 
1824, but removed to Alabama when he was but 9 years of 
age. In those days an education of much scope was a thing 
beyond even the brightest hope of any of the youth of that far 
Southern State, except where the parents were in affluent cir- 
cumstances; and his parents being of moderate means, the 
education obtained by Morgan was from the ordinary schools 
of the day and at his mother's knee. But by natural inclina- 
tion he was studious, and full of the desire to acquire knowl 
edge and excel his fellows by the possession of information 
and the art of knowing how to use his store of knowledge to 
the best advantage. Never did he swerve from his course of 
acquiring knowledge and more knowledge and yet more knowl- 
edge, until his mind became a veritable encyclopedia upon not 
only the important questions confronting the nation and its 
statesmen, but upon every imaginable subject To the youth 



Address of Mr. Craig, 0} Alabama 109 

of our land who must make their own way in the world and 
gain for themselves the education that a lack of means denies 
them, no greater inspiration can come than the magnificent 
struggle and achievements of this sparingly schooled but 
nevertheless most highly educated scholar and statesman 
When but a youth he studied law in the office of William P. 
Chilton, of Talladaga, and when scarce 21 was admitted to the 
bar. His progress in the profession was rapid, and ten years 
after his admission to the bar he removed to Dallas County and 
continued his practice at Cahaba, then the county seat. Here 
he remained until the breaking out of hostilities between the 
North and South. During all the stirring times preceding the 
war he took an active part in the politics of his State, and in 
i860 was elected an elector on the Breckinridge and Lane 
ticket. In his canvass of the State on that ticket he first came 
into state prominence as an orator, and from that time was 
destined to hold a place as orie of the ablest leaders the people 
of Alabama have ever known. To such an extent had that 
canvas and his untiring efforts for state rights placed him in the 
forefront of the battle in which the State then found herself 
that his presence as a member of the convention, commonly 
known as the "secession convention," was imperative, and 
accordingly he was sent by Dallas Cc inty as her representa- 
tive in that body. His wonderful eloquence and his strength 
as a debater won for him in that convention still greater renown 
among the people, who, later, were to call him from private 
life and make him their representative in the highest delibera- 
tive body in the world. 

In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the Cahaba Rifles, a com- 
pany of the Fifth Alabama Regiment, and his services as a sol- 
dier of the Confederacy ended only with the Confederacy itself. 
As he had led in the pursuits of peace, so was he to lead his 



no Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

countrymen in war, and in a brief space of time he had risen 
from the ranks to a colonelcy, and thence to the rank of briga- 
dier-general. When first appointed a brigadier-general he- 
resigned the commission because he thought his regiment needed 
him and he could do more good there, and not until his place 
in his regiment was filled to his satisfaction would he consent 
to accept the higher commission, which he held to the close of 
the war, thus demonstrating that in the truly great solicitude 
for the welfare of the country's cause is greater far than arhbition 
for glory and command. Oh, what a lesson such patriotism 
would be to the hustling, shouldering self-seekers of to-day, if 
they would only stop in their mad race for plaudits and place 
and look upon the life of this truly great man, so strikingly 
outlined in this one unselfish, patriotic act! 

Great though his achievements as a soldier were, the greatest 
achievements of General Morgan were in times of peace, when 
he lent his matchless mind and energies to working out the 
great problems that confronted him as a statesman. Rising 
high above the plane of the politician and measuring every inch 
a statesman of the purest type, it was but natural that as soon 
as the reconstruction period in the South was ~>ast and the 
yoke of the federal soldier and the carpetbagger had been 
thrown off, making it possible for a true representative of the 
people to be elected, he should have been chosen to represent 
Alabama in the United States Senate. His first term in the 
Senate began in March, 1877, and without interruption he 
served until his death, on the night of June 11, 1907, four 
months after he had commenced the service of his sixth term, 
the result of a unanimous election at the hands of the people 
of his State. 

His services in the Senate were a constant source of pride 
to his constituents, and the impress which he has left upon 



Address of Mr. Craig, of Alabama ti i 

American legislation is lasting in character and marked by 
the profound wisdom and farsightedness of the man. His great 
ability as a lawyer stood him in good stead in the Senate, and 
his merciless cross-examination of certain railroad magnates 
during the investigation of the refunding grabs of the Pacific 
railroads, soon after his advent into the Senate, placed him 
among the best lawyers in that body. An incident is told in 
connection with that investigation which indicates most strongly 
his high character. Not long after the investigation had closed, 
the particular railroad magnate who had received the most 
thorough drubbing at the hands of Senator Morgan called at 
the Senator's house. He was most cordially received, as were 
all visitors to that most hospitable home. During his call the 
railroad man referred to the impression that had been made 
upon him of the great legal abilities of the Senator, and told 
him that he had called to engage his services as counsel for his 
road, saving that they wanted him, and that he might himself 
fix his salary, no matter if it went as high as $50,000 a year. 
The reply of Senator Morgan was, that so long as he served 
his country in the Senate he would serve no corporations; that 
he had severed his connections with the railroads for which he 
was counsel at the time of his election, and that he would con- 
sider it a favor if the railroad magnate would leave his house. 
He often said that that offer was' the greatest insult ever offered 
to htm during his whole sendee in the Senate. 

Though an intense party man, he always considered his duty 
to his country paramount to his party allegiance, and when 
ever his judgment led him contrary to the measures of his party 
leaders he did not hesitate to act upon his judgment. Such 
was the case in the annexation of Hawaii. On that question 
he stood steadfastly against the policy of President Cleveland, 
and it is due more to his farsightedness and determined stand 
than to anything else that the revolutionists in Hawaii were 



112 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

not turned over to a cruel monarchy to be mercilessly butch- 
ered, while America stood aloof, little dreaming of the need she 
was soon to have for those islands as a halfway station in the 
Pacific during the Spanish war. His work in shaping the 
course of the United States in this instance and in promulga- 
ting a system of laws for the Hawaiian Islands goes far toward 
proving him one of the greatest statesmen of his time. His 
services in the Bering Sea arbitration and his numberless other 
achievements are still bright in the memory of the generation 
and will take their rightful places in history. More than any 
other man may he be called the "father of the Isthmian Canal," 
for, while the route that he favored was not ultimately adopted, 
it is due more to his ceaseless labor in educating Congress and 
the people upon the necessity for an interoceanic canal than 
to any other agency that the project of .connecting the two 
oceans was finally undertaken by this country. 

How much, Mr. Speaker, might be said of the great work of 
this wonderful man! But I will mention but one more of his 
services to his State, and that is his part in defeating the infamous 
"force bill." His speech upon that subject is one of the most 
remarkable efforts of his splendid career, and I say, and believe 
that I speak for every white man in Alabama and the South, that 
had he never accomplished anything in all his career save the 
defeat of that bill, he had by that deserved and gained the ever- 
lasting love and gratitude of a people who felt that the very 
life of their institutions was dependent upon his success in 
that fight. 

SENATOR EDMUND W. PETTUS 

Senator Pettus was of the kind of American fashioned in the 
school of adventure and trained and developed by the life of 
a soldier and pioneer. Born in 1821, he grew up with the coun- 
try, and himself helped to make its history. Like his colleague, 



Address of Mr. Craig, of Alabama 113 

he was trained to be a lawyer, and in very young manhood was 
elected solicitor of the seventh judicial circuit of Alabama. 
Soon after he entered upon the duties of that office our nation 
became entangled in disputes with Mexico, and war was 
declared. True to every patriotic impulse, this sterling young 
lawyer at once volunteered his services to his country and 
went to Mexico as a lieutenant in the United States Army, 
serving gallantly and efficiently until the end of the war. 

In 1849 his adventurous spirit led him to the gold fields of 
California, but the thirst for wealth and gold, for gold itself, 
having no place in his nature, he returned to his native State, 
where, in 1855, he was elected judge of the seventh judicial 
district. In 1858 he resigned the judgeship and moved to 
Dallas County, where he entered upon the practice of the law 
and where he lived for the remainder of his life. Settling in the 
town of Cahaba, then the flourishing county seat of the rich 
county of Dallas, he built up a lucrative practice, but when the 
rupture between the North and the South could no longer be 
averted and hostilities were about to commence, he again left 
the peaceful pursuit of his practice and took up the sword to 
do his duty as he saw it. Starting at the rank of major, in 
two years he had risen to the command of a brigade, which he 
led during the remaining days of the war. In the discharge 
of this, as in the discharge of every other duty imposed upon 
him, he was conscientious, untiring, and brave, and was always 
looked to in times of great stress to lead his followers to vic- 
tory. The millitary records of the Confederate government 
tell in no uncertain terms of his bravery and devotion to duty, 
and to such men as he and his illustrious colleague the people 
of the South owe their victories in that bloodiest of wars. 

The war being over, General Pettus returned to Dallas 
County, and this time located at Selma, to which place the 
75750—09 » 



H4 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

county seat had been moved. Invaluable though his military 
services had been, no one can say that any less valuable were 
his services to his people during the days that followed the 
closing of the war; days that tried the soul of every true south- 
ern man, for the great problem of dealing with a race of slaves, 
made citizens over night, and drunk witli their supposed power 
and the vain hopes placed in their hearts by unprincipled adven- 
turers, had to be dealt with with a firm purpose and by men 
equipped with courage and capacity for the fight. And so, 
again, did he endear himself to his people. I say his people, for 
he was always one of them, never placing himself above them 
or seeking his own ends, but always by them placed in the lead 
where danger threatened or great problems were to be solved. 
Is it strange, Mr. Speaker, that we should love such a- man as 
that? Is it strange that when he would, it} later years, return 
to Selma after an arduous session of the Senate, his friends, 
young and old, would gather around him and bid him warm 
welcome back to his home and godspeed in his good work? 

After the war, though always at his State's command and 
always in her councils, never did he accept a public office until, 
when he was 76 years old, he was sent to represent Alabama in 
the United States Senate. He was sent by a loving people who 
longed to honor him. How well do I remember the day when 
the news reached Selma that the legislature at Montgomery had 
elected him to the Senate. The news flashed like wildfire over 
the town. The people were so happy that one would have 
thought that every man in the town had been elected instead 
of only one. General Pettus was in Montgomery, but would 
be home that morning, and the people began to make ready to 
receive him. All business was suspended and a general holiday 
declared. As his train drew into the city every steam whistle 
was turned loose, the cannon boomed, and the people cheered 



Address of Mr. Craig, of Alabama 115 

until il was like bedlam. The general, not expecting such an 
outburst, did not know what to make of it, and his friends who 
were on the train with him say that lu- refused to believe that 
it was all done because of his election. When he descended 
from the train and took a carriage to drive to his home the din 
and noise of the happy throng was deafening; and then, spon- 
taneously and on the spur of the moment, the young men, as 
if all inspired by one thought, unhitched the horses from his 
carriage and themselves pulled him through the streets of 
Selma to his beautiful, old-fashioned southern home. He sat 
like one benumbed, scarce believing that all this enthusiasm 
and love was for him; and when, at his home, he tried to thank 
his fellow-citizens, his tender heart gave way and the tears of 
gratitude and joy streamed down his rugged face. 

Of his services in the Senate none knew better than the Mem- 
bers of this House, save his colleagues in the Senate. Always 
honorable, always just, always looking for the right and follow- 
ing it regardless of consequences, there has never been a man 
in that body who had in a greater degree the respect and confi- 
dence of his colleagues and the country at large. 

Mr. Speaker, Alabama is proud of these two sons, both of 
whom spent their lives in the service of the State, preferring 
the reward that comes with duty well performed to the riches 
that either might have gained. in private life. Alabama loved 
and trusted them with never a shadow of a doubt. She weeps 
for them because she has lost them; but with a loving heart she 
realizes that the rest into which they have entered is well de- 
served and sweet, and that their loved ones on the other shore 
had waited long for their coming. 

"Peace to their ashes." And may the blessings of a kind 
and loving Providence be showered upon them through all 
eternity. 



Il6 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Burton, of Ohio 

Mr. Speaker: It is exceptionally appropriate that eulogies 
should be offered for Senators Morgan and Pettus at the same 
hour. Seldom, if ever, have two men engaged in the public 
service in any land who had more in common. Each lived to a 
very advanced age and died with his armor on. Each had his 
home for approximately a quarter of a century in the quiet 
shadows of the little city of Selma. In their death they were 
not divided, and those who tenderly watched over the survivor 
in his last days remarked how lonely he was after his beloved 
associate had gone. Both had borne a very important part in 
the late civil war and had reached the position of general in 
the Confederate army. Though four years of their most vigor- 
ous manhood were given to the great struggle which shortened 
the lives of so many, they remained active participators in the 
movements of the times for more than forty years after its 
close. Both, after the close of the struggle, sought to bury the 
animosities of the bloody strife and of the disagreement which 
had preceded and to acquiesce in the result, recognizing that 
God made this magnificent domain between the lesser and tin- 
greater oceans, between the Lakes and the Gulf, for one united 
country. Whichever side might have prevailed, destinv forbade 
disunion. Every crowned head of Europe might have frowned 
upon us and wished for the severance of the North and the 
South. But severance was impossible. The triumph of one 
or the other could have been only temporary, because in the 
very nature of the physical conformation of the continent, in 
view of the class of people who settled here, and the manifest 



Address of Mr. Burton, of Ohio 117 

advantage of their living together as one people, it was certain 
that all should follow one flag and be a part of one great nation 
surpassing all the nations of the earth. 

Both were gentlemen and statesmen of the old regime. Their 
lives were spent for the most part in the country. They had 
not become absorbed with the commercial and industrial spirit 
of the time. The one duty which impressed them was to the 
people of their State and of the nation. Each had a genius for 
politics; each had a love for the people and a keen considera- 
tion of their interests and of the future prospects and achieve- 
ments of this country. It is somewhat remarkable to consider 
that both of them lived contemporaneously with every President 
of the United States except George Washington and that they 
were of an age when they could appreciate and understand the 
throbbing movements of the time when the long reign of Queen 
Victoria commenced. They lived before the days of the railroad 
and of the telegraph, so that their early impressions were of life 
in its simplicity, without the feverish haste and the vaulting 
ambitions which are so manifest in this time. They were the 
contemporaries of Senator King, who, like Morgan and Pettis, 
lived at Selma and served in the Senate for a period almost 
exactly as long as the service of Senator Morgan. They knew 
Yancey, the fiery, erratic, but entrancing orator. They were the 
contemporaries of Fitzpatrick and of all the great men of Ala- 
bama in the days before and since the civil strife. Two such 
grand old men can scarcely be found in the history of any State 
or any country. 

It was my good fortune to enjoy an acquaintance of some in- 
timacy with both of these men. Of course the career of Senator 
Morgan was a much longer one. His service continued until 
nearly the maximum period in the United States Senate — for a 
little more than thirty years. During all that time he was a 



1 1 8 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan mill Pcttus 

commanding figure in that great legislative body, noted for his 
learning on all subjects. It was easy for him to speak extern 
poraneously upon any of the great topics before that body 
with vigor and understanding and to awaken the interest of 
all his fellow-Senators. But the retentiveness of his memory 
and wide range of his information did not prevent him from 
being one of the most careful students in legislative life. Ik- 
added to the store of learning which he already possessed a 
careful study of all the contemporaneous literature upon any 
subject of interest to the people. He abhorred sham. While a 
partisan, he was ready to step over partisan lines at any time 
when he thought his party was out of line with that which was 
for the future interests of the country. He was one of the 
most steadfast adherents of the principles of civil service. 
Notwithstanding the fact that an educational bill which was 
pending for many years would have caused the disbursement 
of very large sums of money in his own State, he opposed it 
earnestly and successfully as an unwarranted expenditure of 
public money, believing that as the family and the home are 
matters which are local and pertain to each individual commu- 
nit v, so education is a subject which should be under the control 
and direction of the State. 

His name in historv will be most identified with the Isthmian 
Canal. In season and out of season he favored this long-desired 
waterway between the two oceans, and it is no exaggeration — 
it is but a just tribute to him — to say that he more than anyone 
else contributed to the triumphant accomplishment of that great 
enterprise. Although he favored one route to the exclusion of 
the other and was extremely earnest in his views, I well remem 
ber an occasion, on the 2d of March, 1899, when the proposition 
was made in a conference between committees of the two 
Houses to appoint a commission to examine all routes The 



Address of Mr. Burton, <»/ Ohio ng 

members of the committee from the Senate called in .Senator 
Morgan, being unwilling to agree upon any compromise that 
did not have his approval. There was some apprehension that 
he would not acquiesce in any measure which looked to the 
possibility of selecting any other route except that which he 
favored. But, with that tolerance which was characteristic of 
the man, he agreed in a moment upon the proposed settlement, 
being perfectly willing that the best expert examination should 
be given to all routes and that the advocates of all might have a 
chance. It is greatly to be regretted that his life was not pro- 
longed until the final day when this canal shall be opened to the 
traffic of the world, that his eyes might have beheld the result 
of his efforts of his constant and untiring interest in this great 
undertaking. 

A.S regards the problem of our foreign policy he had grasp 
of the conditions in the different countries and of our own 
proper relations with each of them, which has rarely, if ever, 
been surpassed in the historv of the Government. He was a 
stalwart American, and yet like those in cooperation with whom 
he worked, as Secretary Hay, who was his friend and colaborer, 
he believed in a diplomatic policy which should be at once 
without bluster and without cringing; and he advocated that 
the stalwart maintenance of our strength and position among 
the nations of the earth should'be coupled with justice and fair 
dealing. 

Senator Pettus served for a much shorter time in the United 
States Senate. His record in having entered the Senate when 
he was already 76 years of age was almost without a precedent. 
He was courageous; he was brave; he was vigorous to the last. 
Massive in brain and big of heart, he was in a peculiar sense a 
man of the people. No one could listen to him without recog- 
nizing how formidable he would be upon the stump or as an 



120 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and I'cttus 

advocate in convincing a jury. He was a close student of human 
nature — a man possessed of sturdy common sense, and with a 
vigor of intellect which made him always able and ready in 
solving any great question. 

These men, both of them, were men who in the legal profes- 
sion relied rather upon the mastery of the great principles of 
the law than upon text-books. They might not have spent so 
much time as the modern lawyer in the examination of cases, 
but they were grounded in those great fundamental doctrines 
which rest at the foundation of private and public law. Their 
professional affiliations were never with those who seek to evade 
the law, but their services in the court had been to obtain the 
rights of their clients and to enforce those great principles which 
were at the base of our jurisprudence. And in the great ques- 
tions which are before the nation they also were thoroughly 
founded in those same principles. They could look back to a 
long career prior to the great civil struggle and remember those 
days when much of the earlier simplicity prevailed in our 
national life. 

They were strong believers in the principle of States rights, 
in the spirit of autonomy of communities, and yet they were 
not unwilling or unready to accept those changes which worked 
inevitably to bring the different States together and weld them 
into one strong nation. They never forgot Alabama; they were 
never without love and attachment for the State which they 
represented, but at the same time they were never unmindful 
of the grandeur and of the future of this great country of ours. 
They sought to promote its strength, to solve its problems of 
statesmanship, with all their complexities and difficulties, mind 
ful of the fact that there was a future before this nation even 
beyond the comprehension of those who are most farseeing in 
their wisdom. 



Address 0} Mr. Burton, 0} Ohio 121 

They recognized that Alabama is a great unit in (his union 
of States, but also that she has her greatest strength and her 
greatest possibilities because she is one of forty-six united States 
which, when symbolized on our flag, stand forth with more of 
sublimity and with more of beauty than any of the constella- 
tions in the heavens. 

I can not but feel, in the ease of men so advanced in years 
who not only had passed threescore and ten, but who, by rea- 
son of strength, had exceeded fourscore, that the sorrows which 
we feel at the graves of younger men are entirely inappropriate 
Life might have been prolonged to them for a few more years, 
but they tarried with us for their full measure of days; they filled 
the full complement of achievement. They were the actors in 
a day of great progress, beholding many changes, and the 
development of new and greater things. They were always 
actuated by patriotism, by love of State and of country, 
and most of all, were both entirely unstained in public or 
private life. 

Thus it is with a feeling of satisfaction in the triumphant 
completion of their careers that we can say of each, "Well done, 
good and faithful servant," and that our thoughts go out to 
them to-day as laid away among the oaks in the beautiful 
cemetery at Selma. No lofty pinnacle or dome rises ovei 
their graves, but there is a commemoration greater yet in 
the remembrance of their lives and of that which they have 
done for their age and generation. To them belongs a record 
of achievements which will not only survive in the future, 
but give to their memory in the coming days increasing 
honor and affection. 



122 Monona/ Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri. 

Mr. Speaker: Alabama came into the Union in 1819. From 
the day of her admission she has generally been represented 
ably, sometimes grandly, in the two Houses of Congress. 

From the beginning Alabama believed, as does Missouri, that 
it is sheer folly to change her Senators and Representatives 
frequently. Consequently both these States retain their Sena- 
tors and Representatives for long periods, thereby giving them 
an influence in legislation larger than their mere numbers would 
warrant; for let it never be forgotten that a man must learn to 
be a Representative or Senator just as he must learn to be a 
preacher, physician, lawyer, mechanic, merchant, or farmer. 
The more brains, learning, and industry 'he has and the better 
his habits, the sooner he becomes proficient in the difficult art 
of legislating for the people and of a mighty Republic. I feel 
free to speak on this subject because Missouri believes in length 
of service of worthy men, and so do I. More than any other 
portion of the Republic, New England and Pennsylvania seem 
to understand the value of long service here. Five Philadel- 
phians, Kelly, O'Neil, Randall, Harmer, and Bingham, have 
served a total of one hundred and forty-nine years. General 
Harmer was father of the House. General Bingham succeeded 
to tlie title, and long may he retain it; but it mav surprise you 
to learn that should he quit the House, still another Pennsylva- 
nian, Hon. John Dalzell, would become the father of the 
House. 

Missouri was the first State to give a Senator thirty consecu- 
tive years of service. She conferred that great honor upon one 



Address of Mr. ( lark, <»/' Missouri i 23 

of the greatest of all American Senators and statesmen, Col. 
Thomas Hart Benton. He served "six full Roman lustrums," 
as he said in his pompous way To this day she is the only 
State that ever gave thirty years of consecutive Senatorial 
service to two different men, the other being Gen. Francis 
Marion Cockrell. Benton's record was never equaled till March 
4, 1897, when Hon. Justin Smith Morrill, of Vermont, began his 
thirty-first year of continuous Senatorial service. To this hour 
it has never been equaled except by Morrill, of Vermont, John 
Tyler Morgan, of Alabama, and William Boyd Allison, of 
luua lohn Sherman, of Ohio, served thirty-two years in the 
Senate in two sections of sixteen years each, being Secretary of 
the Treasury for four years between his two Senatorial services. 
William M. Stewart, of Nevada, had thirty years of Senatorial 
service in one section of twelve years and another of eighteen 

Of the earlier Senators, William Rufus King, of Alabama, 
one of her two first Senators, came nearest Benton's record, 
serving in the Senate twenty-nine years five months and seven 
days. If to that he added his forty-four days as Vice-Presi- 
dent, in which high position he died, his total service in the 
Senate was twenty-nine years six months and nineteen days. 
I lis Senatorial service, however, was broken into two parts by 
service as minister to France. He was one of the very few 
men in our historv to serve in Congress from two States. Besides 
his long service in the Senate from Alabama, he represented 
a North Carolina district for three terms in the House. He is 
also one of the very few men who resigned from the Senate 
twice. It may be remarked in passing that the resignation 
habit is not growing among Senators or among Representatives. 

As Alabama began, so she continues. In our entire history 
onlv four men have been elected to the Senate for six full terms, 
Morrill, Sherman, Allison, and Morgan. 



124 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

General Morgan died in the fourth month of his thirty-first 
year of Senatorial service and of his sixth full term. He was 
a remarkable man. It is not too much to say that he knew 
more than any other public man of his day. Knowing that all 
his manhood's days, except his four years in the army and ex- 
cept his three decades in the Senate, had been spent as a busy 
lawyer, I always wondered how he found time to acquire such 
an amazing store of information, for "amazing" is the one 
word which, to my mind, most fittingly describes his acquire- 
ments in that regard. Lord Bacon, in a famous letter to his 
jealous uncle, Lord Burleigh, said: "I have taken all knowledge 
to be my province," which seems to have been the case with 
General Morgan. Sidney Smith, of witty and, therefore, of 
blessed memory, declared that omniscience was a foible of his 
friend Jeffreys, and I do confess that sometimes it appeared to 
me that Sidney's mot was more applicable to Morgan than to 
the editor of the Edinburgh Review. In the scope and thor- 
oughness of his information General Morgan classed with 
Thomas Jefferson, John Ouincy Adams, Thomas Hart Benton, 
and James A. Garfield. Considered solely from the standpoint 
of quantity and variety of information, these men may be fairly 
termed the " Big Five " of our politics. Of the five, Morgan was 
the best speaker. 

There is a song to the effect that "Old Virginia never tires." 
Neither did Morgan in speech making. He realized his pro- 
lixity himself and joked about it. Some one asked him how 
long he could speak on a given subject, and he replied, jocosely, 
"If I had studied the subject thoroughly and had my author- 
ities arranged, I could speak three days, but without prepara- 
tion I could speak indefinitely." Edmund Burke was dubbed 
"the dinner bell'' because, so soon as he began, a great many, 
unfortunately for I heir own good, hurried out to dine and left 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 125 

him to harangue empty benches; but his speeches have become 
the text-books of eloquence. So it will be with General Mor- 
gan. His speeches will be indispensable in any study of the 
times in which he lived and of the questions with which he 
wrestled. 

Justly he must be considered the father of the Isthmian 
Canal, though I have no sort of doubt, judging the future by 
the past, that the New England scribes will filch from him that 
glorv and confer it upon somebody from the northeast corner 
of the Republic. 

So far as I know, Senator Morgan is the only man living or 
dead that ever resigned a brigadier's commission to accept that 
of a colonel. Usuallv soldiers are as jealous of each other about 
rank as a lot of opera singers or the members of the diplomatic 
corps, and Morgan's act must be forever rated as one of 
unparalleled generosity and self-abnegation, growing out of his 
absorbing love for the men of his old regiment. 

Gen. Edmund Winston Pettus was the worthy Senatorial 
yoke-fellow with Gen. John Tyler Morgan. They constituted 
a great team. From the very beginning of Caucasian domina- 
tion on this continent the names Winston and Pettus have 
figured conspicuouslv and always honorably in our affairs in 
both peace and war. Towns and counties have been called 
for them, constituting their perpetual monuments. General 
PETTUS was a superb representative of both these historic 
families. 

By reason of proximity of residences here when he first came 
to the Senate, I was better acquainted with General Pettus 
than with General Morgan. Another thing which brought us 
more in contact is the fact that our wives, both being Presby- 
terians, attended Doctor Pitzer's church, the only Democratic 
Presbyterian church in Washington. The General and I may 



126 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and f'etlus 

be not improperly denominated as sons-in-law to that church. 
We attended with our wives, he habitually, I occasionally. He 
and his good wife always took a front seat and it was a beautiful 
sight to see that venerable couple in the house of God. If I 
had time, I would be delighted to make a speech about Doctor 
Pitzer and his church, their struggles and their triumphs, their 
small and difficult beginnings, and their present high standing 
and commanding position. Doctor Pitzer came to rank as a sort 
of bishop. To illustrate the esteem in which he was held, once 
a little girl who was a member of his church was asked what 
St. Paul said on a certain subject. She replied: "I don't know 
what St. Paul said; what I want to know is what does Doctor 
Pitzer say." 

General Pettus was one of the most lovable men I ever knew. 
He was the soul of courtesy, not of the bogus sort which consists 
in bowing and scraping and genuflections, but in that genuine 
courtesy which means kindness of heart. He was a princely 
man, of princely stature, and of princely manners, plain, unosten- 
tatious, gracious, and courtly. He was seventy-five years old 
when first elected to the Senate — a most unusual thing. He 
brought to Washington the reputation of being a great lawyer, 
and he maintained that reputation to the end. While he held 
a high place among the Conscript Fathers, he was too old to 
form the Senatorial habit; for there is a Senatorial habit and a 
House habit, the two being quite distinct. That is the reason 
why it occasionally happens to the general surprise that some 
man who is a great figure in the House fails to sustain his 
reputation in the Senate. While General Pettus made a fine 
reputation in the Senate, it would naturally and inevitably have 
been greater had he entered younger and served longer. 

In the days of the gold fever General Pettus rode horseback 
across the plains to California in search of the golden fleece. 



Address of Mr. Clark, oj Missouri 127 

He took in his saddlebags the Bible and Shakespeare, and upon 
them formed his style of strong, terse, luminous speech. No 
man of his day spoke purer English than General PETTUS. 

He came of fighting stock on both sides of the house and was 
a soldier in two wars the Mexican and civil. In the former he 
was a lieutenant; in the latter, major, colonel, and brigadier. 
The annals of the great war give no instance of fiercer fighting 
than he did at Vicksburg. If he had performed that feat under 
Napoleon, he would have been made a marshal of France. The 
heroic Tcxans whom he led that day elected him an honorary 
Texan, a high honor which he greatly prized to his dying day. 

Happily, he was endowed with rare powers of sarcasn and a 
saving sense of humor. When he made his celebrated speech in 
repl) to Senator Beveridge, an exceptionally exquisite piece of 
sarcasm, wit. and humor, it happened that I was lecturing at 
Michigan University. His speech was headlined and greatly 
exploited in the newspapers. It set the country in a roar from 
sea to sea. The first time I was in the Senate Chamber after 
returning to Washington I congratulated the General on the 
fame he had achieved. Solemn as a graven image, he replied : 
"My speech on that occasion was one of the indiscretions of 
youth." 

What happened to Generals Morgan and Pettus in 1906 
will, in all human probability, ■ never be duplicated in this 
world. General Morgan, then past 82, was, in a primary elec- 
tion, unanimously nominated for a Senatorial term ending when 
he would be 89 years of age, and General Pettus, at 86, was 
unanimously nominated for a term which would end when he 
would be 95. The intention of Alabama was to keep these two 
illustrious men in the Senate so long as they lived, which she did 
Taking into consideration, however, the fact that both wen 
well past the Psalmist's extreme limit of fourscore years, and 



128 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

the further fact that the Alabama legislature is elected for four 
years, the people did the unheard-of thing of nominating alter- 
nate Senators, who now occupy the seats of Morgan and Pettus 

Without exaggeration or bad taste, it may be confidently 
declared that Morgan and Pettus were ideal American citizens 
and ideal American statesmen; pure, brave, capable, patriotic. 

Both were lawyers, both volunteer soldiers., both Senators 
of the United States, faithful to every duty and in every rela- 
tion of life. In their careers they illustrated American virtues, 
adorned American history, and vindicated American institu- 
tions. 

At last each could have declared truthfully and triumphantly 

with St. Paul: 

I have fought a good tight; I have finished my course- I have kept the 
faith 



Address of Mr. Clayton, of Alabama 129 



Address of Mr. Clayton, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker: Doubtless the custom which the House of 
Representatives observes to-day will never be abolished. Cer- 
tainly it will be cherished as long as the American people love 
free institutions, appreciate faithfulness and ability on the part 
of their public servants, and so long as there is in the hearts of 
men affection for former associates and a just regard for the 
great and good deeds of those who have passed from the activi- 
ties of this life to the undiscovered country. 

So much has been said here in this Hall and at the other end 
of this historic building, the greatest legislative building in the 
world, in eulogy of the characters, lives, and public services 
of John Tyler Morgan and Edmund Winston Pettus, the 
two distinguished sons of Alabama, now gone to their reward, 
and whose memories we honor to-day with our last sad tribute, 
that one can not be expected to do much more now than to 
repeat, in different form, what has been by others so truthfully 
and beautifully expressed. Perhaps, sir, a Representative 
from the State of Alabama would be criticised by the people of 
that Commonwealth were he to remain silent on this occasion 
when distinguished men from different States of our common 
country unite in doing honor to the illustrious dead. However 
that may be, I am constrained, Mr. Speaker, by a higher motive, 
by my affection for and admiration of Senator Morgan and 
Senator Pettus, to give utterance to my sentiments for them 
and my estimate of them and their achievements. 

JOHN TYLER MORGAN. 

John Tyler Morgan was born at Athens, Tenn., but in his 
early vouth removed with his parents to Talladega County, 
75750—09 9 



130 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

Ala., and was there reared to manhood. Senator Morgan 
rarely ever spoke of himself, and on account of this modesty we 
do not know as much of his childhood and youth as we would 
like to know. It is said that as a child he was far from robust, 
and that on account of this fact he was compelled to cultivate 
and pursue a fondness for reading books for his entertainment 
and instruction. He could not and did not engage as much in 
youthful sports as boys generally do. If this be true, then it 
would seem that what might have been a misfortune in his 
vouth was turned into a blessing, and the delicate boy became 
studious and finally developed into a learned and great man, 
who kept up the intellectual industry and habit of his youth 
almost to the very hour of his departure from this life. 

Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that Senator Morgan 
had more information on a greater variety of subjects than any 
of his associates in that august tribunal, the Senate of the 
United States, of which he was a useful and conspicuous mem- 
ber for more than a quarter of a century. It is not overpraise 
to say that in years to come he will be written down as one of 
the few great statesmen of America who wrought during the 
last two decades. Not only, sir, did Mr. Morgan have a won- 
derful store of information, but his information was full and 
accurate, for he was always a student and was blessed with a 
marvelously good memory. 

No man could read a book or treatise and analyze and com- 
prehend it more quickly and accurately than he could; and he 
never forgot anything that he had learned. His mind was a 
vast storehouse of knowledge of every kind that he had ever 
acquired, and he had the rare ability to use his information 
aptly in writing, in discourse, or in debate. Some teachers 
deplore very much training of the memory of the youth upon the 
assumption that great development of the memory is at the 



Address of Mr. Clayton, of Alabama 131 

expense of the reasoning faculties. But Mr Mi (RGAN's ease fur- 
nishes an illustrious example where a good memory was ever 
ready to serve and did serve a splendid intellect in the sublime 
art of reasoning, the great weapon of offense and defense of 
men eminent in statecraft, in the pulpit, at the bar, and on 
the bench. A distinguished man, who served in the Senate for 
a number of years with Mr. Morgan, said of him that he was 
the most wonderful man that he had ever heard; that there 
seemed to be no limit to his knowledge, and that the accuracy 
of his learning and statements was marvelous. 

Senator Morgan's intellect was so fruitful and he so indus- 
trious, and spoke and wrote so much and so well, it is, perhaps, 
true that his reputation suffered as a consequence. He said 
so much that was worth knowing, so much that was worth 
remembering, that he sometimes surfeited his listeners or read- 
ers. Hardly anyone except a student or a specialist was will- 
ing to follow him in all of his wonderful speeches and writings, 
exhaustive in research and learning and faultlessly expressed 
in dignified and excellent English. 

Mr. Morgan was famous as a statesman before he added to 
his renown by his work as a member of the Bering Sea Com- 
mission. His reputation was great and secure without his con- 
spicuous service on the Hawaiian Commission. He was illus- 
trious throughout the world and beloved by the people of the 
South before he defeated the "force bill" in the Senate, a bill 
that was designed to reintroduce there the saturnalia of crime, 
misgovernment, and corruption that characterized the period 
of reconstruction. He was a renowned statesman before he 
persuaded the people of the United States and all their repre- 
sentatives in high places that the construction of an isthmian 
canal was essential or important in the commercial progress 
and development of the country and necessary for the better 



132 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

national defense. Almost in the beginning of his senatorial 
career he became the persistent champion of the construction of 
this canal. At first he had but few coworkers or sympathizers, 
but he lived to see the day when the people of the whole coun- 
try recognized what he had seen with his wise and wonderful 
vision many years before. No one will dispute, when the two 
oceans shall have been united by a canal across the isthmus, that 
this great work will stand as an imperishable monument to the 
statesmanship, the persistence, and wisdom of Senator Morgan. 

We must leave it to his biographer to catalogue his many 
wonderful speeches, his many learned reports and other docu- 
ments and state papers — all of them constitute a large part of 
and a real contribution to the legislative and political literature 
and history of the last two decades and more. 

Senator Morgan was a member of the Methodist Church, and 
was esteemed for his many virtues of head and heart by all the 
people of his State, regardless of creed. It was beautiful on 
that June day when he was laid away in "God's acre," when, 
the trees were in full foliage and the roses were in bloom, to 
see the whole population of Selma and the surrounding country 
unite in paying his memory respect and honor. This great man 
lived a long and useful life, and when, as ripe grain ready for 
the harvest, I doubt not that he consoled himself with the 
elevated thought and conviction that he so appropriately 
pronounced in his eulogy on Senator Hill when he said of that 
distinguished son of Georgia : 

Discarding all blind confidence in fate and deeply sensible of responsi- 
bility to God, his noble and just spirit left its brief existence for one that is 
eternal, satisfied with the past and confident of the future. 

EDMUND WINSTON PETTUS. 

Edmund Winston Pettus was a native of Limestone County, 
Ala., where he grew to manhood. Early in his career as a lawyer 



Address of Mr. Clayton, of Alabama 133 

he was attracted to Selma, where the fertility of the land, 
the wealth of the people, and the large farming and other inter- 
ests presented an inviting field to a young lawyer of ability and 
ambition. He was of sturdy Welsh descent and came directly 
from Revolutionary heroes. He rarely ever spoke of himself 
and never boasted of his many achievements, the legitimate 
fruits of his intelligence, his unswerving honesty, and his sturdy 
manhood. He was too brave and too modest to make preten- 
sions or to engage in self-laudation. 

Senator Pettus was one of the greatest lawyers that Alabama 
ever produced. It is easy to say that he was learned and able. 
It is but just to him that we particularize. He was learned, 
because he had mastered the horn books in his profession and 
was a faithful student of the commentaries on legal subjects 
and the opinions of the courts. He was able because he had 
stored away in his well-ordered and great mind knowledge of 
law as a science. And he was ablealso because of his unsur- 
passed power of analysis and statement. He had the rare 
gift of being lucid and yet brief in his argument before courts 
and juries. 

No court or judge ever tired of hearing him maintain or con- 
trovert a proposition asserted as law. He knew what to say, 
how to say it, and had the good sense always to know when to 
end his argument either before the court or jury. He was a 
strong advocate. He never shot his argument over the heads 
of laymen, but had the rare faculty of applying the facts of his 
case to correct exposition of the law, so that any man of ordi- 
nary intelligence could comprehend his argument and appre- 
ciate the logic of his conclusions. He made no pretense at what 
may be called mere oratory, and yet in any great case or on any 
great occasion his ringing sentences, his vigorous statements 
were at times most eloquent. He was a diligent student of the 



134 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

Bible. He quoted from it more frequently than from all other 
books combined. Occasionally he would quote from Shakes- 
peare or some other author, but the Bible seemed to be the 
source from which he drew all of his philosophy and nearly all 
of his illustrations. 

General Pettus was 76 years of age when he came to the 
Senate. He at once devoted himself to the duties of his high 
position and met every requirement of his people and his coun- 
try. Those of us here who served in the House of Represent- 
atives during the same time that he served in the Senate can 
testify to his faithfulness in the discharge of his duties, not 
only in the Senate, but before the Departments of the Gov- 
ernment in any case where any of the people of Alabama were 
interested. He was never too busy, nor was any day so un- 
pleasant as to prevent him from going cheerfully, if requested, 
with any of the Representatives from Alabama to look after 
the interests of any of his constituents before any Department. 
It seemed to afford him a pleasure to be able to do good out- 
side of the mere discharge of his duties as a Senator. He was 
always polite, courteous, and considerate of those who invoked 
his aid or advice in his official or unofficial capacitv. He was 
never impatient, never disagreeable, but always obliging and 
manly and helpful. 

He came to the Senate after he had lived out the allotted 
time of man, and was immediately thrown in contact with 
great lawyers, distinguished statesmen, men who had been 
expounders of constitutional law for years. Yet he easilv took 
rank among the foremost of them. It is true that as an advo- 
cate he had passed beyond the zenith of his glory before he 
came to this new scene, and yet his learning, ability, and great 
wisdom readily gave him high standing among his fellow-Sena- 
tors. He was a ripe and wise counsellor. His conciseness of 



Address of Mr. Clayton, of Alabama 135 

statement was pleasing, the brevity and logic of his argument 
was attractive and generally convincing. His inflexible ad- 
herence to vital points involved in any case or question was 
attractive and remarkable. He never went off after side is- 
sues or immaterialities. He never sought at the bar or in the 
Senate to mislead an antagonist into some byway to divert 
attention from what seemed to be a vulnerable place in his own 
case. He had too much intellectual integrity for that; his 
honestv would not permit him to resort to any tricks. He 
believed his position right and had the courage to present it 
with his argument fully in front of the case and contention of 
his antagonist. He knew what to say, and struck at the vital 
and essential points. He had a rare sense of humor, which 
sometimes he used to great advantage. 

He had the respect and admiration of his fellow-Senators. 
He was a hard worker in the committee and a regular and 
faithful attendant upon the sessions of the Senate. He had 
great respect for the dignity of his position, and often insisted 
in the Senate upon the decorum becoming to that body, and for 
which it had been so long distinguished. 

General Pettus served his people long, well, and faithfully 
in his capacity as private citizen, as jurist, as soldier, and 
statesman. With the exception of a short while in his early 
life when he was a circuit judge, he never held any civil office 
until he came to the Senate. Mr. Speaker, I would not insti- 
tute invidious comparisons, and I would not say that General 
Pettus performed during those dark days following the great 
civil war, from 1865 to 1875, more services to his people than 
any other man in the State, but I believe, sir, that were the 
question submitted to the people of Alabama to name the most 
conspicuous, the most modest, unselfish, and influential pri- 
vate citizen of that Commonwealth in those terrible and trying 



136 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

times they would, perhaps, and without offense to anybody, 
respond with the name of Edmund Winston Pettus. 

It is difficult for those who have come upon life's stage since 
the reconstruction period to fully comprehend, even when told 
about it, the wonderful courage, fidelity, and unselfishness of 
this great man. After he had fought for his people he returned 
to them, lived with them, counseled and acted with them 
and for them. Not only was he modest and brave, but he 
was one of the wisest of men. He loved peace rather than war, 
preferred tranquillity to violence, but he never hesitated to 
fight if that was the only avenue to right and the only way to 
prevent wrong. He reverenced his God, loved his fellowman, 
and feared nothing beneath the shining stars. Senator 
Pettus was a great lawyer, a brave and distinguished soldier, 
an able and faithful Senator, a devoted husband, father, and 
grandfather, and an honest and just man. He has gone to the 
reward that belongs to those who faithfully meet every obliga- 
tion of life in its every relation — to God, to country, to fellow- 
man, and to family. 

MORGAN AND PETTUS. 

Mr. Speaker, there are many remarkable features about the 
lives and careers of these two men, John Tyler Morgan and 
Edmund Winston Pettus. Many of these features belong 
alike to the history of each of them. Their public and private 
careers touched each other in many relations. They were both 
lawyers and came to the bar about the same time. They each 
took up residence at Selma about the same time, where they 
continued to reside until their death. They were among the 
great leaders of the bar of Alabama, for they were great lawyers. 
They were friends and fellow-workers and political associates 
from early manhood to ripe old age, and in their latter davs, 



Address of Mr. Clayton, oj Alabama 137 

after having been before so honored, they were each nominated 
by the people of Alabama in the same primary election for and 
reelected by the legislature of Alabama to the high office of 
United States Senator, which in the case of Senator Morgan 
began the 4th of March last and in the case of Senator Pettus 
was to begin the 4th of March, 1909, at the expiration of the 
term he was serving when death came to him. 

Mr. Morgan and Mr. Pettus alike believed that the States 
had the right to secede from the Union. They both fought for 
their convictions, and each became a brigadier-general in the 
Confederate armv. After Appomattox they accepted in good 
faith the results of the war, and renewed their allegiance to 
the Union, and counseled and labored to the end that our 
distressed country should be reunited in fact and in the affec- 
tions of all the people. They were honest, brave, and were 
always guided throughout their lives by exalted patriotism. 
After the disastrous and unsuccessful war they returned to 
their homes in Alabama and devoted themselves to binding 
up the wounds of the suffering people and State, and, facing 
the new situation, proclaimed the gospel of hope and encour- 
agement to the oppressed in the well-nigh desolate country. 
The wail of despair never fell from the lips of either of these 
great men, they never chafed under the new conditions; and 
when the unfortunate period came in the history of America, 
when reconstruction, with attendent evils, was forced upon 
the people of the South, these patriots resented in every proper 
way the wrongs perpetrated upon their helpless neighbors 
and fellow-citizens. Morgan, Pettus, and other Confeder- 
ate soldiers showed the way to liberation from oppression, and 
pointed out the course by which the people of that State came 
again into the possession of their own, and the blessings of a 
white man's government and Christian civilization. 



138 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

Many other facts could be recited, Mr. Speaker, to show how, 
in many particulars, the careers of these two illustrious men 
were intertwined the one with the other. Finally, they both 
died within a few weeks of each other, being at the time United 
States Senators from Alabama, one, Mr. Morgan, past 82 years 
of age, and the other, Mr. Pettus, upward of 86 years of age. 

There lives were useful and honorable. They enriched the 
history of their country; they were a credit to the people of 
Alabama, by whom they were beloved, and their examples 
furnish inspiration to ambitious and struggling youth through- 
out the land. 

WAR DEPARTMENT, THE ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE. 

Statement of the military service of Edmund II'. Pettus, C. S. A., major, 
Twentieth Alabama Infantry, September o, 1S61; lieutenant-colonel, 
Twentieth Alabama Infantry, October 8, 1S61; colon./, Twentieth Ala- 
bama Infantty, May s8 % 1S63. brigadier-general, provisional army, Con- 
federate States, September 18, 1863. 

Edmund W. Pettus entered the military service of the Confederate 
States as major of the Twentieth Alabama Infantry September 9, 1861; 
was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and colonel of the same regiment 
October 8, 1861, and May 28, 1863, respectively, and to brigadier-general, 
provisional army, Confederate States, September t8, 1863. 

In the earlier part of his service he was with his regiment in the Depart- 
ment of East Tennessee. Of his service at this time it is officially stated 
that "his conduct was of the noblest character, and there, while he won 
the admiration of his superiors and the love of his subordinates, he evinced 
those qualities as a commander that have since on several bloody fields 
rendered his name illustrious." 

Moving with his regiment from East Tennessee to Mississippi, he bore a 
part in the operations preceding and during the defense of Yieksburg. 
His conduct on these occasions is thus recorded: "At the battle of Port 
Gibson his gallantry was conspicuous. At Bakers Creek and during the 
siege of Vicksburg his deeds of daring earned a prominent place on the 
page of history." He is also specially mentioned by Maj. Gen. C. L. 
Stevenson in his report of the siege of Yieksburg, as follows. Referring 
to the assault of the Union forces on May 22, 1863, he says: 



Address of Mr. Clayton, of Alabama 139 

"An angle of one of our redoubts had been breached by their artillery 
before the assault and rendered untenable. Toward this point at the 
time of the repulse of the main body, a party of about sixty of the enemy 
under the command of a lieutenant -colonel made a rush and succeeded in 
effecting a lodgment in the ditch at the foot of the redoubt and planting 
two flags on the edge of the parapet. The work was constructed in such 
a manner that this ditch was commanded by no part of the line, and the 
only means by which they could be dislodged was to retake the angle by 
a desperate charge and either kill or compel the surrender of the whole 
party by the use of hand grenades. A call for volunteers for this purpose 
was made and promptly responded to by Lieut. Col. E. W. Pettus, Twen- 
tieth Alabama Regiment, and about forty men of Waul's Texas Legion. 
A more gallant fea"t than this charge has not illustrated our arms during 
the war. 

"The preparations were quietly and quickly made, but the enemy 
seemed at once to divine our intention and opened, upon the angle a terrible 
lire of shot, shell, and musketry. Undaunted, this little band, its chival- 
rous commander at its head, rushed upon the work, and in less time than 
it required to describe it, it and the flags were in our possession. 

" Preparations were then quickly made for the use of hand grenades, 
when the enemy in the ditch, being informed of our purpose, immediately 
surrendered." 

Other commanders also commend his services during the defense of 
Vicksburg. At the battle of Port Gibson, .May 1, 1863, he was captured 
by the opposing forces, but soon thereafter made his escape and rejoined 
his regiment, with which he was surrendered July 4, 1863. 

After his promotion to the rank of brigadier-general he was assigned to 
the command of a brigade, which he led in the Chattanooga-Ringgold 
campaign, in November, 1863. General Stevenson, in his general orders 
of November 27, 1863, says: 

"It was Pettus's brigade * * * which first checked an enemy 
flushed with victory on Lookout Mountain and held him at bay until 
ordered to retire. On the next day, on the right of Missionary Ridge, 
* * * and Pettus's brigades * * * fought with a courage which 
merited and won success." 

General Pettus, with his brigade, participated in the campaign which 
culminated in the capture of Atlanta, Ga., by General Sherman's army. 



140 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

Moving northward with General Hood's army, he commanded his brigade 
in the campaign which resulted in the battle of Nashville and the sub- 
sequent movement of the Confederate army into the Carolinas. 

He was specially commended by superior commanders for his conduct 
in the Nashville campaign. 

In the campaign of the Carolinas he and his brigade bore an active part, 
participating in the engagements at Kinston and Bentonville. In the 
last-named battle he was wounded. 

He was paroled at Salisbury, N. C, May 2, 1865. 

Official statement furnished to Hon. H. D. Clayton, House of Repre- 
sentatives, April 24, 1908. 

By authority of the Secretary of War. 

F. C. Ainsworth, 

Tlie Adiutant-General. 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 141 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker : Already in the other House Senators from the 
North and East and from the great Middle West and the Pacific 
coast and from the South have spoken most fittingly and elabo- 
rately of the two Alabama immortals who died in harness in 
that bodv. Yet it is none the less becoming in us of the House 
to add affectionate testimony to our own estimation of the dis- 
tinguished dead. 

Born in Alabama in the second year of her statehood, Edmund 
Winston Pettus grew up with his State and lived his whole 
life of more than eighty-six years a beloved son and honored 
citizen. At different periods of his life he lived in six different 
counties. The last half century and more of his splendid man- 
hood was passed in Dallas County, middle Alabama, the heart 
of the Black Belt, among a people noted for intelligence, patriot- 
ism, and hospitality, where he knew everybody and everybody 
knew and loved him. For this and other reasons he may well 
be called the typical Alabamian, of whom the State was proud 
all of her days and all of his long life. He was familiar with 
every year of her history, and contributed substantially to make 
that history. The part he played was not only important, but 
always prominent; yet the prominence was never of his own 
seeking. He did not push himself, nor claim leadership, nor was 
he ever forward. His modesty was great and sincere. When 
occasion for public service arose he was always present, but did 
not volunteer to lead. He waited till his people called, and 
responded always promptly. He never had to wait long, for 
his people were quick to call on him to take his proper place. 
His unwavering confidence in the judgment of his people made 



142 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

him accept whatever position they saw fit to assign. His worth 
was so well recognized and his wisdom so universally acknowl- 
edged that at no time in the years of his manhood, when pres- 
e nt and a public question was to be considered or acted upon, 
did his people in any part of his State fail to select him for a 
leading part. His efficiency was not impaired by lack' of self- 
appreciation; he was too brave and manly for that. Besides, 
he believed implicitly in the judgment of his people, and when 
they said "Lead," he obeyed, because it was their judgment 
that he was the proper man to lead. He loved to perform public 
duties, for he regarded the duties of citizenship as the highest 
duties of man, and he performed them well, because he loved to 
serve and obey his people. 

Senator Pettus was descended from many generations of 
splendid ancestors, paternal and maternal — Virginians and sol- 
diers of the Revolution. He was of kin to the Winstons, Tav- 
lors, Strothers, Gaines, and many other of the early families of 
the Old Dominion. And while he was himself a born Demo- 
crat, at heart and in truth, he looked down upon no worthy 
man; he was proud of this fact, and did not hesitate to an- 
nounce his opinion on it, as will appear from his remarks on 
Senator Hoar, quoted on last Saturday by Senator Gallinger. 

He married a Miss Chapman, also of high lineage, his equal in 
every respect, and a lady who lived a lovely and a useful life, 
and almost as long as her devoted husband. She died in 1906, 
scarcely more than a year ahead of him. 

He lost his father in very early life, and was reared by a 
splendid mother. Notwithstanding, he had some advantages of 
education, and besides the old field school, spent a term or more 
at Clinton College, Tennessee. 

He read law, as was the custom in those days, in the office of 
a lawyer in north Alabama. 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 143 

It will not surprise anyone who knew the man to hear that 
he was a soldier in the Mexican war and held the rank of lieu- 
tenant. He did not reach high rank immediately in his profes- 
sion, though he held the office of state solicitor twice, and was 
again a judge on the circuit court bench, where it is said he pre- 
sided with dignity and ability. 

In 1849, after the war with Mexico, affected by the gold fever, 
he rode on horseback to California. He was very proud of being 
a "Forty-niner," and loved to talk about it. He attributed 
much of his success in after life and at the bar to the study, 
on his long ride through the Great American Desert and during 
his search for gold on the Pacific slope, of the two greatest 
books, in his opinion, ever printed — the Bible and Shakespeare. 

His life in California brought him no money, but truly a deep 
and wide experience, which broadened and strengthened his 
mind and nature, and tinctured noticeably his whole career. 
He returned to his home by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and 
crossed on foot, with his saddlebags on his shoulders, by the 
trail of the old Spanish freebooters and along the banks of the 
Chagres River. He caught the dreaded fever of that region — 
feared as much as the plague — and came home with it. But 
his splendid constitution and will vanquished the disease. 

It was most interesting to listen to the old soldier tell of his 
home-coming, toilsome and dangerous and rough, and compare 
it with the present rapid, easy transit of the Panama Railroad. 

Senator Pettus was loyally, distinctly, and profoundly South- 
ern in all of his pojitical views, though broad and patriotic 
and thoroughly American in feeling. Descended from genera- 
tions of Presbyterians, he was as intensely Calvanistic as Crom- 
well, though he never attached himself to the church. He was 
a man of deep convictions, with a keen sense of honor, and of 
profound and abiding opinions, and absolutely fearless in the 



144 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

expression of them. He believed in heredity, and he loved and 
revered his ancestors and the ancestors of his people and the 
Constitution which they made, together with the landmarks 
placed by the early judges along the line of its interpretation. 
He also believed in democracy and the old-fashioned Democratic 
party without shadow of turning. Time and again I have heard 
him say in public speech: "I inherited my democracy and 
believe in the doctrines of the fathers." 

So, when the time came for war in 1861, this first-born Ala- 
bamian volunteered among the first. He volunteered as a pri- 
vate, but was soon selected and elected as major of his regiment. 

As a man and lawyer, as a citizen, and as prosecuting attornev 
and judge, he was noted for integrity of character and truth. 
As a soldier, he was noted from the first battle, as a soldier 
should be, for courage. Step by step, by courage unflinching, 
cool, and untinged with rashness, he won his way to brigadier- 
general. In this rank his splendid coolness and remarkable 
care for his men in battle made him always a leader in the van 
of an advancing army and the rear guard on the retreat. As 
a soldier he combined happily the qualities of Murat and of Ney, 
but was most of all like Ney, reliable, stable, unflinching, a 
rock of Gibraltar against attack. It was his nature to be 
first in a charge and last in retreat. 

His modesty followed the soldier as well as the citizen. Dur- 
ing the siege of Vicksburg he was selected to organize and lead 
a desperate and almost a forlorn hope, the retaking of a most 
important redoubt. 

I asked the old general — for so I loved to call him — one day 
when we were strolling near the Capitol, to tell me about the 
time when he volunteered to lead the charge through the crater 
at Vicksburg. He replied with some warmth: 

I never volunteered. I was ordered. If you ever hear it said I volun- 
teered I want you to deny it. 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 145 

He then gave me a most graphic description of one of the 
most thrilling adventures I ever listened to. I begged him then 
and afterwards to repeat it to a stenographer and let me have 
it in his own words for publication. He declined then and 
afterwards with his usual firmness and courtesy. 

He told me in the course of his remarks that he did not 
volunteer for this dangerous enterprise, but undertook it in 
the line of duty and obeyed orders. But said he, with much 
emphasis: 

There were some brave men there who did volunteer, a whole battalion 
of them — Waul's Texas battalion. They volunteered to a man. I had 
never met them before, nor they me. I took forty of them with me, and 
no man, before nor since, ever had such a command of brave men, one 
and all. 

The way to the redoubt was through a narrow passageway 
and the guns of the enemy could rake it fore and aft. By some 
kind Providence he and his Texans passed through without a 
scratch, and in a hand-to-hand fight with hand grenades and 
bombshells, with fuses trimmed to a quarter of a second and 
thrown by hand over the walls in the midst of the enemy, they 
won the redoubt without the loss of a man. The old general 
added, with tears of fond recollection in his eyes: 

When we all got back and I turned my forty men over to their com- 
rades, they then and there unanimously elected me a Texan, and I was 
prouder of that compliment than of any honor I received during the war. 

When the war was over General Pettus returned to his 
profession and immediately became a leader at the bar, noted 
as a profound thinker and a great lawyer. Soon the recon- 
struction period came on and then it was that Pettus showed 
energies and abilities and courage in peace no less pronounced 
than those he had shown in war. He believed absolutely in 
the inherent superiority of the white race. He looked upon 
7575° — °9 10 



146 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

the reconstruction acts as unconstitutional, indefensible, and 
void. He regarded the position of the South as purely and 
essentially one of self-preservation, and justified any and all 
her acts on the plea of imperious and impending necessity, 
not only to the South but to the race — the question to him was 
more than sectional, it was racial. In the defense of his race, 
especially the women of his race, his life and the lives of all 
were a willing sacrifice. He regarded the supremacy of his 
people as the life of his people. So it was that he volunteered 
to defend and did defend in all the courts in all parts of the 
State any and all persons who were persecuted by political 
prosecutions in the attempt to reconstruct the South to the 
degradation of her people. 

Under his stern leadership and the unflinching and unwavering 
attitude of his people, the policy of reconstruction failed. And 
owing to the character he and his kind made before the nation 
in that desperate struggle, and the splendid patriotism which 
yearly developed throughout the South, the spirit which ani- 
mated that harsh and cruel legislation has died out completely 
throughout the nation. The reign of the carpetbagger is at 
an end, and the stranger no longer sits in the judgment seat. 
The fate of the South is no longer in issue. It is as safe as 
the East or the North or the West. Her people are in charge 
of her government, of her civilization, and of her development. 
In the past ten years the record of the South shows in contrast 
with the days of reconstruction "a peace which passeth all 
understanding," and a prosperity and material development 
which challenges the world. The old General lived to see his 
hopes realized and his course vindicated and it filled his big 
heart with pride and happiness. 

Senator Pettus never held but one political office, his seat 
in the United States Senate. No man who ever accepted a seat 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 147 

in that great body honored the position more highly than did 
Senator Pettus. He had a lofty and ideal notion of the dignity 
which belonged to this great office. His reverence for the Senate 
was universally recognized by his brother Senators, especially 
when, on rare occasions, the Senators were out of order and the 
presiding officer would call Mr. Pettus to the chair. At once a 
dignified and respectful order would take place and continue as 
long as Mr. Pettus presided. He did not violate the decorum 
of the Senate himself nor would he approve or tolerate it in 
others. 

When Senator Pettus entered the Senate there arose a sincere 
and vigorous admiration and liking between him and Senator 
Hoar, of Massachusetts. Both Puritans, both men of high 
ideals and inflexible will and independent thought, both as 
different in opinion as has been almost always the East from 
the South, both honest, and both eminently patriotic, they 
first wondered at each other, then admired, then grew toward 
each other, attracted by mutual respect for manliness and love 
of truth and integrity, observed and frankly 'recognized as 
common. 

It was to me something wonderful and most gratifying. 
It showed how easily all true Americans can come together. 

These two men, one from the East and one from the South, 
had lived and worked apart for more than half a century on 
opposite sides of the greatest, gravest, profoundest questions 
that ever occupied the attention of mankind. In the last years 
of their lives they were thrown together in the Senate of the 
United States. Without apology for the past and with no 
perceptible change in the views of either on great national 
questions, it was but a short time when all the world could see 
that Senator Pettus trusted Senator Hoar and that Senator 
Hoar trusted him, and the trust was implicit. 



148 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

When Senator Hoar died Senator PETTUS, among other 
touching things, said : 

The great Senator from Massachusetts, to whose memory we have met 
to pay tribute, was better known to those who have spoken than to 
myself. They knew him longer, and they knew him and associated' with 
him and learned to honor him as a scholar and as a lawyer. I have only 
known him here in the Senate as an earnest, eminent statesman; and have 
learned, in some degree, to appreciate his devotion to the great work he 
was selected to perform. 

There spoke the natural Presbyterian, giving "tribute to 
whom tribute, and honor to whom honor is due." 

Senator Pettus was a man of few words, but he spoke 
strongly and clearly, so that none could misunderstand. He 
had a vein of humor that was remarkable, inimitable, and at 
times irresistible. He indulged it once in the Senate and put 
that venerable body into a very uproar of mirth in a few terse 
and exceedingly characteristic sentences on the subject of 
oratory and orators. 

It was a speech well worthy the occasion and the audience. 
It is a gem, and of its kind most rare. It should be preserved 
in literature and in the history of Alabama in Congress, and of 
the Senate. 

Senator Pettus's love for the Constitution and reverence for 
the fathers, inherited as he always declared with his blood, 
was rarely shown in a few pithy sentences when the question 
of amending the Constitution so as to elect Senators by direct 
vote of the people was under discussion. He said: 

The amendment of the Constitution of the United States to some 
Senators seems to be of little more consequence than the amendment of 
a law by which a bridge was built over some creek in the United States. 
* * * Mr. President, we seem to have lost all respect for the works of 
our fathers. We seem to have lost all respect for the Constitution of the 
United States. It is nothing more than a trifling law, as one Senator 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 149 

siid, which has served its purpose. Now, I tell Senators I am opposed 
to all of your amendments of every sort, and I intend to cling to the 
fragments as long as one is left. Do as you please for yourselves. 

In true sublimity and simplicity of expression nothing equals 
these sentences except those splendid words of Joshua: 

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. 

In one of his exalted sentences the great interpreter of human 
nature has said: 

The evil that men do lives after them. 

If this be true, and I fear it is, the bones of this great Ala- 
bamian may repose in quiet and his great spirit may rest in 
peace, for in all his long life he did no evil to man or woman, 
and much good. He lived a generous life. He was as noble as 
"any Lord of Douglas, highland or lowland, far or near," and 
as brave and as true and as loyal. In battle his heart was the 
heart of oak and his hand the hand of steel; at home his heart 
was as kind as a woman's and his hand as gentle. He loved 
his country wholly, and he served his people wisely and well. 
Only dear memories remain of his splendid manhood, great 
in integrity and in loyalty, lofty in patriotism, and peerless in 
courage. And as he lived so did he die, welded in the hearts 
of his family, his friends, and his people, never to be forgotten 
in time or in eternity. He loved his people with his whole 
heart; and his people loved him the best of all. 

Mr. Speaker, Senator Morgan was a man of infinite natural 
resources and ability. He possessed in a marked degree capacity 
for study and investigation, combined with a perfect memory. 
He loved details and delighted in individual research and 
original thought. He relied upon himself and looked to his 
own powers, and from the meshes of his own brain came his 
best thought and speech. In the elucidation of subtle ques- 
tions of law or science he asked no aid outside of his own mind. 



150 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

He thought for himself. All he desired were facts, and all the 
facts of which the subject was capable. So thoroughly self- 
reliant was he that he was wont to say he wished all the Supreme 
Court reports could be destroyed. He was a great lawyer and 
a finished speaker. His command of language, his purity and 
neatness of expression, free always from taint of pedantry, 
made for him a style grand, winning, full of sympathy, and 
most persuasive. 

His power of analysis and of statement was superb, not ex- 
ceeded by that of Judah P. Benjamin, the most noted man at 
the bar of the South in its palmiest days, for clean English and 
clear-cut, logical statement of a case. 

It was said of Senator Morgan at the bar before he entered 
the Senate, by one of the ablest and most distinguished of his 
competitors, that he was a man with the "most privileged 
tongue" in the world. His English was so pure, so full, so 
classical, many wondered and asked what college was sponsor 
for such mastery of a language. Yet he had no college life, 
not even a high school acquaintance, and was to all intents and 
purposes and in its highest sense a self-made man. 

A mutual friend and a fond admirer of the Senator writes 
me: "I once asked him if there was any truth in the report that 
President Porter, of Yale, after hearing him in the Senate, 
sought an introduction in order to learn in what college he had 
acquired his marvelous English. He said no such incident had 
ever occurred, but that Lord Hannen, with whom he was 
associated on the Bering Sea tribunal and with whom he became 
quite intimate, was astounded to learn he had no 'university.' ' 

Before entering the Senate he had a large and lucrative prac- 
tice in his profession; had spent four years in military service 
in the war between the States, where he was twice made gen- 
eral, having once resigned; had been elector for President and 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 151 

Vice- President in i860, and was a member of the secession con- 
vention, where he made much reputation as a speaker. 

From 1865 to 1876 Senator Morgan diligently practiced his 
profession and stood easily among the great lawyers of the 
South. In the campaign of 1876 he made a tour of his State, 
and the reputation he then made landed him almost without 
competition in the United States Senate. He stepped from 
private life into that great body and remained there, practically 
without a contest, till he died in June, 1907. 

He and his great colleague, Senator Pettus, both from the 
city of Selma, in middle Alabama, were elected by their party 
and their people to the Senate for life in the last election held 
for that office before they died. It was a splendid tribute to 
these splendid men, one which has no counterpart in American 
history. 

On entering the Senate John T. Morgan- at once took first 
rank. Indefatigable, patient, studious, courageous, combative, 
and able, he never undertook to address the Senate without 
careful study and patient deliberation. 

It is true he could speak impromptu most fluently, and he did 
so frequently, for he read much and was full of varied informa- 
tion. 

The first real test of his abilities was in the matter of Indian 
affairs. For preparation he went in person to the Territories 
and made his own investigations, which were afterwards em- 
bodied in a report covering 600 pages. The Dawes Commis- 
sion and the change in the treatment of the Five Civilized 
Tribes followed this report and were doubtless influenced by 
it. Indeed, the Senator became known at once as the friend of 
the red man and of the people of the Territories, and it<s not 
too much to say that the statehood so bitterly fought and won 
for Oklahoma and Indian Territory was hastened by, if it 



152 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

did not result from, the early work and speeches of Senator 
Morgan. 

John T. Morgan was a man of national views, indeed. He 
looked ahead like a statesman, and read industriously and ex- 
haustively till he mastered our foreign relations. His great 
learning and ability on international history and law persuaded 
President Harrison to select him, though a Democrat, as a 
member of the Bering Sea Arbitration Commission. His great 
worth in the settlement of this grave question is readily and 
universally recognized. 

Despite the fact that Senator Morgan's ruling thought was 
of the South, for the South, and for the white race in the South, 
he took wide and broad views of our national development and 
international obligations and relations. He was an earnest 
advocate, and an able one, of Hawaiian annexation. He pre- 
dicted expansion and suggested it before the McKinlev admin 
istration adopted it as a policy. He had opinions of his own, 
and he cared not a rap who approved or disapproved, and he 
fought for his views, not always successfully, but always wisely, 
ably, and well. He approved the retention of the Philippines, 
and he coveted Cuba and Porto Rico always, and bent all the 
energies of his immortal spirit toward the cutting of an Isthmian 
Canal — all great national issues, and all in the line of expansion, 
and all, in his judgment, working ultimately to the glorv of the 
South and the rehabilitation of the white people of that section 
as factors in American civilization. 

While he spent much time over the Nicaraguan route and 
bitterly opposed all other routes, the real historian of the future 
will be compelled to give to him the credit of an Isthmian Canal 
within the first years of the twentieth century. He it was who 
more than twenty years ago commenced a series of speeches for 
a canal, and his attack on the Clayton-Bulwer treatv and on 



Address oj Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 153 

the scandals connected with canal work at Panama really edu- 
cated the United States up to the greatest enterprise ever 
undertaken by any people. 

His central thought was an American canal, and that thought 
is what finally won the victory. The mere place where cut is 
an incident ; a canal across the Isthmus is what constitutes the 
enterprise. 

It is unusual to find in the same man wealth of words, even 
a superabundance, and at the same time clearness, logic, and, 
above all, bulldog tenacity. It is this bulldog tenacity which 
accounts for Morgan's great influence in shaping the destiny of 
this great nation. Though his suggestions were made as a 
Democrat and he was not acknowledged as a factor, they have 
been and are being worked out by an adverse political party 
and an adverse administration with whom he was never on 
terms of amity, far less of cooperation. 

In the struggles of Cuba and in our contest with Spain how 
the great Alabamian worked, in season and out, for the striking 
off of Spanish influence in America! He was laughed at, but 
not ridiculed ; for ridicule fell as harmless on this peerless man 
as would a paper bullet on the side of a modern battle ship. 
He was hated, perhaps, and abused, but he pursued the even 
tenor of his way, and lived to see his views of Cuba and Hawaii 
adopted and carried out by a. Republican President and ad- 
ministration against the earnest, active, and bitter opposition 
of the great Senator from Massachusetts and that other differ- 
ent, but equally remarkable, man, the Senator from Maine, who 
labored ably and devotedly all their lives in the front rank of 
their party in all of its battles since the great civil war. 

No man in the world ever exerted such commanding weight 
in shaping the policy of his country with so little of personal 
influence in the national councils, and who was all the time a 



154 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

member of a different political party from that which was in 
power. It is a glorious position which history will render to 
this truly great statesman, due to his wonderful fund of infor- 
mation and indefatigable industry and study of all the details 
and factors which were weaving and interwoven for centuries 
in the march of the world's progress to a wider and a broader 
civilization. 

It is a mistake sometimes made in estimating this great man 
to call him a dreamer and a visionary. I shall take time to 
cite a single instance which ought to convince the most skep- 
tical how untenable the charge is. He made up his mind to 
investigate and master the intricate complications of the trans- 
continental railroad transactions, especially those of the Central 
and Union Pacific companies. In this great battle of brains he 
had to cross swords with the Colossus of Railroads, Mr. Collis 
P. Huntington, a man of towering intellect and tremendous 
influence and power. It was a battle of giants. When these 
two men met each other each knew it was a fight to the death. 
The object in hand was to settle the debt which these railroad 
corporations owed to the United States. Those were other 
days than ours, days when the railroad magnate was a king, 
with all the power and influence of a king. A proposition had 
been made, and was almost accepted, on the basis of Si3,ooo,ooo. 
Senator Morgan declared this was not fair to the Government, 
and was so insistent in his demand for an investigation by the 
Senate that such an investigation was held. The final outcome 
was a pavment by the railroads of $65,000,000, a net gain to the 
Government of $52,000,000 in one great settlement — a fairly 
good, round, and substantial sum to be credited to a dreamer 
and a visionary. He was thirty years in the United States Sen- 
ate. In that time, by this one transaction, there was saved to 
the Government the splendid sum of $1,700,000 and over for 
every year of his long service. 



Address of Mr. Taylor, of Alabama 1^5 

It is known that Mr. Huntington offered this stainless man a 
salary of $50,000 a year as attorney for his railroads, and he 
refused it. His friends, his people, and his State are proud of 
the fact. 

Morgan and Pettis and men of their kind and mold in every 
State of the South are the men who resisted and finally broke 
down and destroyed the reconstruction policy which followed 
the civil war. 

John T. Morgan is easily the most brilliant public man, the 
greatest statesman, the most finished orator, the most profound 
constitutional lawyer, the most perfect English speaker who 
has appeared upon the stage of life in Alabama since 1865. 

Xo argument is needed to establish Morgan's position in the 
firmament of fame. No eulogy of tongue or pen, however splen- 
did, can add one cubit to his stature. His record as statesman, 
lawyer, orator, and citizen was made .by himself and his im- 
mortal works. He made it well and thoroughly, till he stands 
in bold relief in the history of Alabama as a part of the State 
itself. His position is as fixed and immovable as the north 
star. He stands in a class by himself, matchless, peerless, and 
alone. 



156 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Burnett, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker: So far as I have been able to find, no such 
occasion as this has ever occurred before in the history of the 
American Congress. Never before have eulogies on two Sen- 
ators from the same State been pronounced at the same time. 

When God called Alabama's venerable Senators to their last 
reward the State and the nation lost two of their ablest states- 
men and grandest men. 

Connected with the lives and in the death of these men there 
were some peculiar facts. They had for manv vears been emi- 
nent lawyers, living in the same town; both became brigadier- 
generals in the Confederate army; both were United States 
Senators from the same State; were only about three years 
apart in age; both had lived practically all their lives in Ala- 
bama, and died within less than three months of each other. 

It is seldom, if ever, that any State within so brief a time 
has been called to mourn two such distinguished sons. 

Senator Pettus was born in Alabama when the State was 
but two years old, and to his dying day his life was unselfishly 
and loyally devoted to her interests and her welfare. 

Senator Morgan came with his family from Tennessee to 
Alabama when but a small boy, and for seventy-five years he 
lived as an honor to the State and a benediction to her people. 

Senator Pettus was the sturdy old Andrew Jackson type of 
man. He was a good big boy when Jackson died, and I have 
heard him speak of seeing the hero of New Orleans at one time 
when a body of East Tennesseans offered him some indignity, 
and with truly Jacksonian emphasis the old warrior hurled it 
back at them. 



Address of Mr. Burnett, of Alabama 157 

Alabama has much of history to be proud of, and nearly all 
of that history was made under the eyes of these two patriotic 
sons, who were last year called to their fathers. 

They were both there when the war cry of the red man still 
reverberated through her primeval forests. They were there 
when the Creeks and the Cherokees were torn from her borders 
and the echo of their war cry died away with their retreating . 
footsteps. 

They were young men helping to make her history when Ala- 
bama, with her sisters, first began to hear the ominous sounds 
that portended the terrific conflict that later swept like a besom 
over the bosom of our Southland. 

They were strong, brave men when the war cloud grew black 
about her in the troublous days of '60; and they were with her 
when "the storm-cradled nation" was born. 

Before that Senator Pettus had heard the cry of gold in 
California, and like many a young Southerner, had gone in 
quest of adventure and of the yellow metal in that far-off 
State. On his return to Alabama he was chosen to the bench 
of our State, and I have often heard the old lawyers who prac- 
ticed before him say that no fairer or more just judge ever 
graced the ermine than he. 

When the call to battle was sounded both of these splendid 
lawyers closed their offices and buckled on their swords, and in 
war, as in peace, they added luster to the name and fame of 
Alabama. They believed their cause was just, and in its 
defense they were willing to offer up their lives. With the 
starving Confederates at Vicksburg, General Pettus, then a 
lieutenant-colonel, lead a charge which merited and gained for 
him the special approval of a major-general of the Confederacy, 
and at Lookout Mountain the charge of the Pettus brigade 
was one of the brilliant events of the war. 



1^8 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

Mr. Speaker, those were days that tried men's souls. I was 
but a boy, but I remember them well. I remember when the 
first drum beat called to arms. I remember when the first 
company of Confederate soldiers left the count v in which I 
lived. I remember how, with light step and buoyant heart, 
the soldier boy imprinted the farewell kiss on a mother's lips, 
and, dressed in the gray jeans suit woven by that mother's 
hand, he proudly took his place beneath the stars and bars. 
Mr. Speaker, the noble Alabamians whose death we now 1 mourn 
were in the front ranks of those who then obeyed their country's 
call. I remember when, as the days went and came, the news 
of death and disease was borne to the ears of southern mothers 
and wives, and on many a field of carnage the crimson lifeblood 
of brave Alabamians bedewed the sod. Senators Morgan and 
Pettus were no laggards then, but in the vanguard their un- 
sheathed swords gleamed and glittered beneath the southern 
cross, and their voices were heard above the din of battle, 
encouraging their brave comrades to do or die. 

Mr. Speaker, it was decreed that the stars and bars should 
go down to rise no more, and when they were furled forever at 
Appomattox, these two gallant sons of Alabama returned to 
their homes to again take up the thread of civil life. Did they 
sull or sulk in these crucial days? No; but as they had been 
true to Alabama in the dark days of war, they urged obedience 
to so-called "law" in times of peace. Many an old Confederate 
soldier returned on wounded limbs to find his fields laid waste, 
his property destroyed, and his wan and haggard wife and 
hungry children destitute of bread. 

These days of so-called "peace" called more loudly for " Men, 
tall, sun-crowned men," than had the days of awful war. 

With their people again stood these trusted leaders of Ala- 
bama's sons. 



Address of Mr. Burnett, of Alabama 159 

All around was gloom and sorrow. How different the home- 
coming in the spring of '65 from the days when they went out 
in the spring of '61. 

Happv and joyous in '61, sad and sorrowful in '65; "Rachel 
weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because 
they are not." 

But the Healer was there, and His arms were around, 
And He led them with tenderest care; 
And He showed them a star in the bright upper world, 
Twas their star shining brilliantly there 1 

Mr. Speaker, the struggle following the declaration of peace, 
though of a different character, demanded just such leaders as 
had inspired confidence in Southern hearts on a hundred South- 
ern battlefields. 

Again, in the front of the column stood these two great men. 
Men who but a few months before had urged on the charge 
with sword in hand, now with the Constitution lifted high 
above their heads, commanded "Peace, be still." 

None but those who passed through it knew what the South 
suffered then. Chaos reigned and the minions of the law were 
themselyes outlaws of the fiercest sort. Morgan and Pettus 
advised patient forbearance, and but for them, and Clayton, 
and Oates, and Forney, and Wheeler, and leaders of their kind, 
red-handed anarchy would haye spread torch and sward, and 
the manslayer would have held high carnival amid the ruins of 
a desolated land. 

But "there were giants in those days," and almost with the 
hand of inspiration they pointed our helpless people the way to 
peace and prosperity. 

As we emerged from these conditions Senator Morgan heeded 
the people's call to be their leader in the halls of the United 
States Senate. How well he filled that exalted position is shown 



160 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

by the fact that six times they renewed the call. How high he 
stood in the eyes of the Senate and of the American people is 
shown by the fact that on two important commissions he was 
named as one of the representatives of the American Govern- 
ment. 

How near he stood to the hearts of his colleagues in the Sen- 
ate is shown by the splendid tribute paid his memory bv manv 
of them on last Saturday. From the eulogy of Senator Lodge, 
of Massachusetts, with whom Senator Morgan was long associ- 
ated both in the Senate and on the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions, I want to make one brief quotation. He says: 

One might easily differ with Senator Morgan as to the ideals which he 
followed as the years of his long life succeeded one another in their ceaseless 
march, but one could never fail to respect their possessor or to admire the 
indifference which he showed to money in an age of extreme money wor- 
ship, and the ardor with which he pursued objects which had no personal 
value to him, but which, in his belief, would benefit his country and 
mankind. 

But Senator Morgan's great name was not bounded by even 
the nation's lines. In Europe and in Asia his fame had spread. 
I was in Rome when his death occurred. The very next morn- 
ing I saw a splendid picture of him in the Paris daily papers, 
and they contained a long complimentary notice of his promi- 
nent position and of his death. 

Many years of his Senatorial life were devoted to the advo- 
cacy of an Isthmian Canal. For years he battled for the 
Nicaraguan route, and posterity may yet vindicate the wisdom 
of his judgment. I once heard Mr. Hepburn, of Iowa, state 
on the floor of this House that if an Isthmian Canal was ever 
completed, the credit for that consummation would be due 
more to Senator Morgan, of Alabama, than to anv other man. 
Since the work actually began, I have often heard his people 
express the wish, and have often expressed it myself, that he 



Address of Mr. Burnett, of Alabama 161 

might live to sec the first ship pass through that important 
gateway and realize the consummation of his long life's dream. 

Senator Pettus never sought office, and not until the call of 
his people almost rose to a demand would he consent to emerge 
from the more pleasant walks of private life. The first office 
held by him after the civil war was that of United States Sena 
lor. When he did put on the toga, none wore it more hon- 
orably than he. The Senate was not slow to detect the splen- 
did legal ability and rugged honesty of our grand old hero of 
two wars. 

He was soon assigned to the Committee on the Judiciary, a 
committee composed of many of the most profound lawyers in 
that, the greatest parliamentary body in the world. I have 
often heard it said that when Senator Hoar, who was for a 
long time chairman of the committee, wanted any deep investi- 
gation of some hard constitutional question made, he would 
always assign it to Senator PETTUS. 

Among his colleagues he was honored and respected by all. 
No man ever questioned his integrity, and if any man doubted 
his ability he had only to come in contact with his great mind. 
1 will make a brief quotation from the eulogy of Senator Gal- 
linger last Saturday while the Senate was doing honor to our 
departed Senators. He said: 

If Senator PETTUS had an enemy it certainly was not in Washington. 
Here he was respected by all and greatly loved by his associates. Learned 
in the law, skillful in debate, full of humor, and always solicitous for the 
welfare of others, he gained a place in the confidence and affection of his 
associates that was sublime. Senators on both sides of the Chamber vied 
with each other to do him honor, and his death came to us in the nature of 
a personal bereavement 

Though rugged in appearance, he had as noble a heart as 
ever throbbed in mortal breast. My family and I lived at the 
7575o — 00 11 



162 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

same place that he and his wife did during the first winter of 
our stay in Washington, and I saw much of the devotion that 
existed between these two grand old people. For more than 
sixtv years they had trodden life's pathway side by. side, and 
the tender affection which existed between them was beauti- 
ful indeed. As life's shadows lengthened and as they neared 
its sunset together, that affection seemed to grow sweeter and 
gentler, and after the death of his wife, who preceded him for 
more than a year, my grand old friend seemed ever to be look- 
ing into the great beyond for the loved one gone before. The 
tie that seemed to bind Senators Morgan and Pettus was as 
strong and as sweet and as gentle as that between David and 
Jonathan. In life they were fast friends, and God did not long 
leave the one to mourn for the other. 

For them as good and great men their people mourn, and it 
will be long before grand old Alabama shall see their like again. 

As our Southern springtime year by year sends forth the 
sweet aroma of her flowers the young men of their little Ala- 
bama city might well drop a flower on their graves and say: 
Here lie the ashes of two men whose lives all Alabama boys 
should emulate and whose memories all Alabamaians should 
ever keep sacred. They are gone, but their deeds do follow 
them. 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 161 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker: Since the close of the Fifty ninth Congress 
t lie hand of death has fallen on the venerable and noted Sena- 
tors from Alabama, John Tyler Morgan and Edmund Win- 
ston Pettus, each illustrating in his character and life the 
highest type of American citizenship. Alabama mourns to- 
day over the fresh-made graves of these grand old men as a 
mother who refuses to be comforted, and as she never mourned 
before. Generous, kind, and sincere expressions of respect 
and sympathy have been tendered through the press and other- 
wise from all her sister States of the Union. There is an affect- 
ing pathos in the unison of the lives of these two great American 
citizens. For quite sixty years they lived as neighbors and 
warm personal friends, following the same profession in a 
beautiful Southern town in the southern portion of Alabama. 
The messenger of death called them from life within a few days 
of each other. They sleep their last sleep near each other in 
the beautiful cemetery in the city of Selma, Ala. 

I recall, Mr. Speaker, that the political history of Alabama 
reveals the fact that for many years sections and localities of 
the State demanded and received recognition in the election of 
our United States Senators. This rule was not applied to Sen- 
ators Morgan and Pettus. Such was the love, admiration, 
and confidence of the people of Alabama in these two men 
that their residence in the same town was not an objection to 
either one of them as Senators for the whole State. No words 
of mine can adequately portray the incidents of life, the traits 
of character, and public service that secured such a tribute 
as that. Neither of them ever planned or schemed to secure 



164 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Prttus 

public honors for himself or to detract from others. Sincerity, 
honesty, and independence in thought and act was their reliance. 
Both of them gave their hearts to the South when war came. 
Each one, by precept and example, gave his splendid talents 
to heal the wounds that war had left and to restore unitv and 
friendship between the North and the South. 

I shall speak to-day mostly about Senator Morgan. I can 
not present him and his life justly and truly as did Senator Pet- 
Tus in remarks made by him near the close of the Fifty-ninth 
Congress on the floor of the Senate while his colleague, Senator 
Morgan, was not in his seat. It is to-day the voice from the 
grave — the voice of a man who was a lifelong friend and who 
knew Senator Morgan better than any living person. In 
speaking of Senator Morgan he said : 

He began his education at the old field school. He has always been 
.1 student from boyhood. I knew him when he first became a lawyer, 
and I have known him ever since. I have lived in same village with him 
for about sixty years. 

* # ****** 

Mr. President, the senior Senator from Alabama came here in mod- 
erate circumstances, and he is in very moderate circumstances to-day 
His estate is wortlT only about as much to-day as it was when he came 
here, and to tell the truth, Mr. President, our people are proud that he 
is worth no more. It may be a singular sort of thing, but they are proud 
of him because he has not become rich. 

"It may be a singular sort of thing," said Senator Pettis. 
"but they are proud of him because he has not become rich." 

Those who knew Senator Pettus know that he had no preju- 
dice against the honest accumulation of wealth. He did not 
mean that. More than thirty years in the Senate of the United 
States, in the presence of the glittering blandishments of 
wealth, brilliant, proud, and able — a cultivated Southern gentle- 
man, depending on his salary for support — equal in ability to 



Addn m o) Mr. Richardson, o) Alabama 165 

the greatest statesman of the highest legislative body of one 

of the world's greatest nations, faithful in the discharge of every 
public duty, devoted to his State and his country, yet the 
people of Alabama "were proud that Senator Morgan was not 
rich " — that wealth had not come to him by reason of his official 
life. The tribute of Senator Pettus to his great colleague is 
more precious to-day to his family, his friends, yea, to all the 
people of the South, than all the combined wealth of the proud 
and haughty "million-heirs" of the world. This, sir, is his good 
name — his spotless reputation. Senator Morgan entered the 
Senate a poor man, and died a poor man, but far richer than 
a man of mere wealth. 

Midst the creeping poisonous rumors that in the recent years 
of demoralization have cast their shades and shadows of sus- 
picion on the lives of many public men, as to the use of official 
position for personal gain, Senator Morgan moved and lived, 
unscathed, untouched, far above the flying shafts of suspicion. 
His life as he went in and out before the people of this great 
country for more than thirty years will take high rank in 
the history of the Republic with that class of public men who 
served their country with high and unselfish purposes and true 
devotion. To serve the public through public office was to 
him the noblest of man's mission. It is quite impossible, on an 
occasion like this, to do justice to the life work of such a man, 
whose activities span the history-making period of our country 
from i860 to 1907. Few men remain who have had such an 
experience. When the end came with him there was but one 
member of the Senate who had served longer than he had. 

Senator Morgan was instinctively a modest man and never 
sought or desired to be a leader of men, as leadership in political 
matters is commonly understood; yet, in the true sense, he 
was an undisputed leader in his own State, for the people of 



166 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pittas 

Alabama followed him with a faith and confidence that knew 
no hesitancy or doubt, a compliment rarely bestowed on any 
public man. 

The distinguished and patriotic editor of the Louisville 
Courier- Journal, Mr. Watterson, has so graphically and truly 
written of Senator Morgan that I repeat here what he said of 
him : 

The Grand Old Man of the Senate — Alabama's glorious John Tyler 
Morgan — is gone at last. We could not have him with us always. He 
was a type of what we imagine the Roman Senator to have been in the 
palmy days of the Tiberian republic, a perfect type of the best that was 
in the Old South. A logician, like Calhoun, and as chaste in his life, he 
possessed much of thegeniusof Webster, without any of Webster's gigantic 
faults; the rather a learned and modest Benton, untiring, indefatigable, 
practical, and enlightened. He possessed neither the spirit of vanitv to 
dwarf his perspectives, nor of bullying to mar his methods. The chrono- 
logical circumstances of this man's life may be told in a few sentences 
his deeds could not be recorded by many volumes. Old as he was, he will 
be missed from the public service. His place in the Senate can not In- 
filled. Kentucky mourns with her Southern sister, but every good man in 
the United States, whatever his political belonging, should lift his hat and 
bow his head when he learns that Morgan — Morgan of Alabama — is dead. 

John Tyler Morgan was born June 20, 1824, at Athens, in 
the State of Tennessee, and died at his residence in the city of 
Washington on the 11th day of June, 1907. He came to Ala- 
bama before he was 9 years of age, and continuously resided in 
our State to the date of his death. He was honored by the 
people of Alabama with six consecutive elections to the United 
States Senate, an honor never before accorded to any other 
"citizen of our State. In i860 he was an elector for the State 
at large on the Breckinridge and Lane ticket. He was a dele- 
gate to the State convention of Alabama that passed the ordi- 
nance of secession from the Union. He joined the Confederate 
arm\ and rapidly rose to the rank of brigadier-general. 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 167 

Having served continuously in the Senate for thirty years, it 
was natural to presume, by reason of his frequent reelections, he 
would acquire a knowledge and familiarity with political finesse 
and manipulations. All such practices were unknown to him. 
After his election in 1876 practically he never had any oppo- 
sition. 1 doubt whether his campaign expenses in any election 
exceeded the fee he was required to pay the secretary of state 
for certifying his election to the Senate of the United States 
I feel, Mr. Speaker, that I do not indulge in an extravagant 
expression when 1 say that during the generation that Senator 
Morgan occupied his seat in the Senate of the United States 
there was no man in that august body more worthy or better 
equipped to reflect honor and dignity on the high title of Senator 
of the United States than he was. 

He stood for the best traditions, highest ideals, and the 
recognized courtesies, proprieties, and dignity of the Senate. 
Its courtesies appealed naturally to his refined, affable, and 
cultivated nature, and he illustrated in his daily walk and his 
intercourse with his colleagues that splendid manhood, broad 
statesmanship, dignified gentlemanly deportment, devotion to 
duty and country, that should adorn such an exalted position 
as a seat in the Senate. The Senate to him was the bulwark 
of the sovereignty, and the Union of equal States, and he was 
easily one of the most powerful exponents of his political faith, 
to the defense of which he brought the rarest powers of elo- 
quence and the profoundest learning. He was stalwart in his 
fidelity to the simple and plain teachings of the Demoeracv 
of the fathers, and such was his great knowledge and apprecia- 
tion of the true spirit of our democratic form of government 
that it was a matter of both principle and pride with him to 
designate himself a "public servant." Senator Morgan was, in 
the broadest sense, a statesman and an American. No narrow 



i68 Memorial. Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettui 

view of partisanship could swerve him in his duty to his whole 
country. To his country and his country's glory and honor he 
gave, without reserve, the wealth of his matchless abilities. 

For the more than thirty years that Senator Morgan stood in 
the gaze of the critical public, always among the foremost in 
the discussion of great national questions, he never touched 
them except as a statesman. None ever doubted what his 
position was on any national issue. It is in such a life as his 
that our free American institutions emphasize their greatest 
beneficence and virtue. He was always an ardent student, an 
indefatigable worker. He carefully studied all public questions. 
His power of analysis, his irresistible logic, with fluency, rhetoric, 
and grace of oratory, easily made him a peer of the most famous 
debaters of the Senate. He practically was never idle. At his 
seat in the Senate or in his private office at home he was always 
at work. He did not thus labor for mere selfish gain or personal 
exploitation, but he worked that he might "serve his State and 
his country better." He conscientiously believed that his time 
and his talents belonged to the "State," even to the extent, as 
I personally know, that he has refused to take compensation for 
the preparation of magazine articles on public questions. It 
may be that in this he was too scrupulous and sensitive, but 
the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that the country admires him none 
the less because he took that view, for it was consistent with 
his long, honorable, and unselfish career of devotion to the 
public good. There was nothing ever done by him simply to 
attract attention. 

No man from the South labored more efficiently in and out 
of season to point out to the world the industrial possibilities 
of Alabama and the South. He lived long enough to see the 
commercial future of the South safely established. It was but 
a few months since that under a resolution of the Senate he 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 169 

prepared and made a report to the Senate which outlined in a 
masterly manner the vast industrial possibilities of the watershed 
of the Mississippi River. He said: 

The most valuable area within the limits of the United States is the 
cateh-basin, or watershed, of the Mississippi River. 

He dwelt on the national importance of the deep channel from 
the Great Lakes to the Gulf. This exhaustive report is accepted 
bv many of the ablest engineers of the country as the foundation 
for the solution of the great engineering problems for the devel- 
opment of the vast industrial resources of the watershed of the 
Mississippi River and its tributaries. It may be that in fifty 
years from now, when the population of the Mississippi Valley 
has increased from 30,000,000 to 100,000,000 of people and its 
commerce will be greater than any other area of the world, then 
due credit and renown will be given Senator Morgan for this 
wonderful work. Nothing better illustrates than this report the 
great variety of his vast intellectual powers. 

Mr. Speaker, the South points with pride to the names of 
many great men who occupied seats in the Senate of the United 
States before the great civil war between the States of the Union. 
Their names are linked with imperishable honors, and thev 
gave by their statesmanship and patriotism luster to the 
Republic. They flourished chiefly in the more than sixty years 
that the Democratic party under Southern influence and guid- 
ance dominated the national policies of our Government. Sena- 
tor Morgan's entrance into national public life was under the 
shadows and prejudices of the dark days of reconstruction, when 
the Democratic party was without influence or power. He 
entered at a time when the South was impoverished, bleeding, 
and prostrate, midst the wild orgies and the exultant shouts of 
our former slaves and their unworthy allies. To the great work 
of restoring the South and the Union he devoted his splendid 



170 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

talents. Day by day he broadened and strengthened in his 
noble work. No man north or south of Mason and Dixon's line 
contributed more to restore national friendly relations between 
the sections than did Senator Morgan. In all his public utter- 
ances there breathes a purity and intensity of love for the 
South — the people whose traditions and history, whose life and 
whose ideals, social and political, were hallowed to his heart 
and memory; yet it can not be denied that through these very 
utterances he always manifested his love for the whole country. 
I feel that I can with propriety, Mr. Speaker, refer to an 
incident that occurred with Senator Morgan in the summer of 
1906. The town of Hartselle, in Morgan Count v, Ala., adver- 
tised for a home-coming and an old-fashioned barbecue. Sena- 
tor MorgAn was the only speaker for- the occasion. I attended 
the meeting with him. Fully 6,000 prosperous, contented, and 
happy people had assembled, each eager to greet the old man 
that Alabama had so generously honored. When he arose to 
speak, everyone in that vast audience paid him the beautiful and 
touching tribute to rise to their feet. In a tremulous voice, 
clear and distinct, he opened his remarks by referring to a 
political meeting that he had last attended and addressed at 
that place more than thirty years ago, when the desolation of 
reconstruction hung over the South like a pall. Curses, perse- 
cutions, degradation, and humiliation, he said, were poured 
out then over our desolated homes and section. A few citizens 
and Confederate veterans gathered in front of the ashes of a 
destroyed home to hear him speak. The meeting was opened 
with prayer by a good minister whose heart was burdened by 
the sufferings of his people, and with a prophetic and sublime 
vision of Christian faith, fervently, on bended knees, implored 
Almighty God to spare his people "from the wrath of man." 
In low and thrilling accents, with an inspiration that came 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 171 

from the depths of his loving heart, Senator Morgan told that 
great audience — pressing forward, eager to catch every word- 
about this scene, and how often during that thirty years, in his 
seat in the Senate and in the privacy of his own home, he had 
repeated and recalled the prayer of that devoted minister. 

Strange as it was, the minister that uttered that prayer, with 
the burden of more than fourscore years and ten resting on him, 
whose life had been given to the sendee of God, was on that 
platform, who rose and said : 

Senator, I am the preacher who uttered that prayer. 

With hands uplifted to heaven, and with streaming eyes, 
Senator Morgan said: 

God in his mercy has answered the prayer of his faithful servant for 
his suffering people. This great audience in its joyous greetings, clothed 
in prosperity and the enjoyment of religious, social, and political freedom, 
speaks God's praises and your deliverance. 

The effect of this scene on that Southern audience could not 
be faithfully portrayed by words, nor could it be placed on 
canvas by the greatest genius of art. 

I will not attempt to point out the distinguished part he bore 
in most of the great national questions during his long service 
in the Senate. It is undoubtedly true that to Senator Morgan, 
more than to anyone else, is due the credit of having joined the 
two oceans by the Isthmian waterway. This credit can not be 
taken from him. The world knows the work he did and the 
effect of the same. It was Senator Morgan who, for quite a 
quarter of a century, stood courageously on the floor of the 
Senate and thwarted the schemes of the transcontinental rail- 
roads to defeat the Isthmian Canal. He it was who taught the 
country the commercial value of the great project. 

I am told that his famous speech, delivered in the executive 
session of the Senate, against the adoption of the Panama 



172 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

route is classed to-day with the great traditions of oratory and 
information of the Senate. After years of laborious research 
he was convinced that the Nicaragua route was the best. He 
gave his reasons for his faith, and he struggled without cessa- 
tion for his convictions, until the decision was made against 
him. Senator Morgan was a confiding, credulous man, and 
he confidently believed to the last that the Nicaragua route 
would be selected. Who is it, with the lights before the coun- 
try that we have, is fully prepared to say that he was not right 
in the advocacy of the Nicaragua route? Yet under all the 
trying circumstances that gathered around him no man has 
ever been able to point out one act or utterance of his that 
remotely imputed that he was not a sincere friend of the con- 
struction of the Isthmian Canal. I was a member of the In- 
terstate Commerce Committee of the House when the Nicara- 
gua bill was unanimously reported to the House, and but few 
votes were cast in the House against the bill. In the Senate 
the bill was amended by substituting Panama for Nicaragua. 
It was then that Senator Morgan demonstrated his unselfish 
patriotism and his exalted statesmanship. He was fully advised 
as to the temper of the House, demonstrated by the overwhelm- 
ing vote in favor of Nicaragua. Yet I know personally he urged 
the earnest friends of the Nicaragua route to concur in the Sen- 
ate amendment and accept the Panama route and avoid a con- 
ference between the Senate and the House, which he declared 
would be fatal to an isthmian canal — the end so much, desired 
by the transcontinental railroads. 

On the admission to the Union of the new States from Min- 
nesota to the Pacific, he demonstrated his national democratic 
creed and his patriotism. His Democratic colleagues gener- 
ally opposed this national policy. His position and his influ- 
ence in opposition to the policy of his party on the question of 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 173 

Hawaii constitutes one of the noted historical eras of our Re- 
public. He was opposed to tearing down the work that had 
been done at Honolulu and restoring the overthrown monarchy 
with its cruel oppressions. The great service that he rendered 
the country in that important matter was not fully recognized 
until the strategic value of the islands. in our Spanish-American 
war was realized and accepted so fully by the country to-day 
In this, as in all other great national matters, Senator Morgan 
was guided and influenced by the broadest and most unselfish 
love for democratic principles. It is admitted that he was one 
of our best-informed public men on the foreign relations of the 
United States, and followed the wise and patriotic precept, 
"peace, commerce, and honest friendship with the nations, en- 
tangling alliances with none;" the support of the state govern 
ments in all their rights, as the most competent administration 
for our domestic concerns and a sure guaranty against anti- 
republican tendencies; the preservation of the General Govern- 
ment in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of 
our peace at home and safety abroad. He believed that the 
Western Hemisphere was the best theater for the growth and 
strength of our Republic. Commercial expansion without colo- 
nial acquisition met his cordial support. As chairman of the 
Committee on Foreign Relations, when his party was in power, 
a leading minority member for years thereafter, he rendered 
his country doubtless the most valuable service of his public 
life by defeating treaties that would certainly have involved us 
in European troubles. 

Senator Morgan was an uncompromising Democrat, and stood 
for the principles of his political organization. His fidelity to 
Democratic principles was a national asset and the pride of his 
partv. He stood for what is called now "old-fashioned Democ- 
racy," and for the highest and best type of southern sentiment. 



174 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

He was not an advocate of "modern progressive Democracy " 
He measured up a full representative of that grand class of 
Democrats who see strength, grandeur, and glory in the pres- 
ervation of the autonomy and the rights of the States, and noth- 
ing but hopeless despotism and endless oppression in the de- 
struction of the States. He looked with much alarm upon the 
consolidating tendencies and the socialistic disintegrating meth- 
ods of those advocates who believe that power ought to be con- 
centrated at Washington, or who believe in unrestricted liberty — 
the creed of the communist of the present day. I have often 
heard him say that he indorsed what the great Senator from the 
empire State of Georgia, Ben Hill, had said: 

That the Government under which we live has no model. It is partly 
national and partly federal, an idea which to the Greeks was a stumbling 
block, to the Romans foolishness, to the Republican party an insurmount- 
able paradox, but to the patriots of this country it is the power of liberty 
unto the salvation of the people. 

However great the loss would have been to the country at any- 
time that Senator Morgan might have died during his long 
career, I fear that death came to him at such a time when his 
great ability, his exalted patriotism, and his love for the Con- 
stitution were never more needed. He enjoyed the esteem, re- 
spect, and affection of his colleagues. Deserved recognition of 
his abilities and high character was accorded him by President 
Harrison and President McKinley, the one making him one of 
the arbitrators of the Bering Sea fisheries and the other naming 
him one of the commissioners to organize a government in Ha- 
waii. His name is reverently and gratefully enshrined in the 
hearts of the people of the South forever for his matchless strug- 
gle against the destructive provisions of the force bill. 

My personal relations were of that character of intimacy that I 
feel that I am at liberty to speak of Senator Morgan as he lived 



Address of Mr. Richardson, of Alabama 175 

in the sacred precincts of his home. He was often a most wel- 
come guest in my own home. His private life, his life in the 
home circle, is as well known and established with personal 
friends who enjoyed his confidence and love as is his fame of 
statesmanship throughout the country. 

I venture to say, on a subject as sacred as his life at home, 
that he was in the fullest sense the embodiment of gentleness 
and affection. Pageantry had no attractions for him, either in 
public or private. Simplicity in all things was his desire. In 
acts, thoughts, and words, purity and cleanliness stood out 
prominently as the luminous lights of his character. I have 
never heard a ribald jest, an unchaste expression, or the use of 
God's name in vain fall from his lips. He reverenced the truth 
and had confidence in his fellow-man. He loved God, and was 
a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. 

Mr. Speaker, Alabama holds up the mirror of her past of more 
than eight v years to her sister States, and points to the names 
of many of her distinguished sons, who by their ability, states- 
manship, and devotion to State. and country have given her 
rank with her foremost sister States of the Union. The lives of 
such men as William R. King, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, Clement 
C. Clay, senior and junior, William L. Yancy, John Anthony 
Winston, Jeremiah Clemmens, George S. Houston, Thomas H. 
Watts, James L. Pugh, and others, that contribute so much to 
the proud history of our State are clear to every Alabamian. 
With this brilliant and honored galaxy of great men, Alabama 
tenderly and lovingly places the names of her great, able, and 
honored sons, John Tyler Morgan and Edmund Winston Pet- 
Tus, and assigns to them the choicest niche in her temple of 
fame. 



176 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Sulzer, of New York 

JOHN T. MORGAN 

Mr. Speaker: In the death of Senator John T. Morgan the 
Commonwealth of Alabama lost her foremost and best beloved 
citizen and the country one of its greatest and most esteemed 
statesmen. He was a grand old man, honest and brave, elo- 
quent and courageous, learned and logical, sagacious and patri- 
Otic, and his departure to the undiscovered land leaves a void 
in our public and private life which can not be filled. He will 
be missed more and more as the years come and go. He was a 
gentleman of the old school, a man of heroic mold, of much 
reading and constructive ability, of the highest honor, of un- 
questioned integrity, a part of our history for more than half a 
century, and in his personality he linked the glories and the 
memories of the past with the plod and progress of the prosaic 
present. For thirty years and more, like a Roman senator in 
the brightest era of the ancient republic, he stood like a giant 
oak in the greatest legislative forum of the world eloquently 
championing the rights of man and battling for the cause of 
Democracy — as brilliant as Clay, as industrious as Benton, as 
logical as Calhoun, and as profound as Webster. 
In halls of state he stood for many years 
Like fabled knight, his visage all aglow, 
Receiving, giving sternly, blow for blow, 
Champion of right! But from eternity's far shore 
Thy spirit will return to join the strife no more. 
Rest, citizen, statesman, rest; thy troubled life is o'er. 

John Tyler Morgan was bora in the little town of Athens, 
Tenn., June 20, 1824. He received an academic education 



Address o) Mr. Sulzer, of New York 



j i 



chiefly in Alabama, to which State he was taken when 9 years 
old, and where he resided continuously until his death. He 
studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1X45, on reaching his 
majority, and he practiced his profession with much abilit) 
and great success until his election to the Senate. He was one 
of the great lawyers of the country — learned and eloquent, 
methodical and industrious, sagacious and sincere, honest and 
true, safe and successful. He was a Presidential elector in 
i860 for the State of Alabama, and voted for Breckinridge and 
Lane. When war came between the States he joined the Con- 
federate army in May, 1861, as a private, but was soon pro- 
moted to be a major and shortly afterwards to be a lieutenant - 
colonel of his regiment. He was commissioned in 1862 as a 
colonel and raised the Fifty-first Alabama Regiment ; was ap- 
pointed brigadier-general in 1863, and was assigned to a brigade 
in Virginia, and subsequently resigned to join his regiment, 
whose colonel had been killed in battle. Later, in 1863, he was 
appointed again a brigadier-general and assigned to the Ala- 
bama brigade, which included his own regiment. 

After the war he resumed the active practice of his pro- 
fession, was again a Presidential elector in 1876, and voted 
for Tilden and Hendricks. He was always a Democrat of the 
old school, and ever took a deep interest in public affairs. 
He was elected to the United States Senate to succeed George 
Goldthwaite, took his seat March 5, 1877, and continued to 
represent his State in that Chamber of Congress until his 
death, having been elected for six full terms, and I believe in 
all our history there are less than half a dozen men who have 
been elected to the United States Senate for six full terms in 
succession. He died in the Capital of his country in the fourth 
month of his thirty-first year of continuous Senatorial service, 
75750—09 '- 



178 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

with a world-wide reputation, full of honors, in the zenith of his 
fame, and with the respect and the love of all the people of all 
the land. 

For years General Morgan was a commanding figure in the 
Senate, a conspicuous legislator, a shining mark, a sturdy 
plodder, an eloquent debater, and his work in Congress has left 
a deep and lasting impress on the affairs of men and on the 
statute books of his time. He was a man of great energy, of 
unwearied industry, of unswerving devotion to principle, of 
eternal fidelity to friends, and he had the faculty to sound the 
depths of every proposition that came within the confines of his 
consideration. He exhausted every subject within the range of 
his grasp. He was a man of the highest ideals, of the noblest 
impulses, of the clearest conception of the amenities of human 
life, and he stood for the best traditions of the Senate and rep- 
resented in his personage the highest type of an American citi- 
zen. He was a faithful public servant, and the great work he 
did for all the people will live as long as the Republic shall en- 
dure. He gave to his country the best and ripest years of his 
life and his country will never be ungrateful to his memory or 
forgetful of his long and illustrious service. The country mourns 

its loss. 

But weep not for him ' 

Not for him who, departing leaves millions in tears! 

Not for him who has died full of honor and years! 

Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high; 

From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky. 

It was my good fortune, Mr. Speaker, to have known Senator 
Morgan well. He was my friend and I was his friend. For 
more than a dozen years we worked together in Congress, and 
I had frequent occasion to consult with him and to get his 
advice regarding matters of much public moment. He was a 
most approachable man, kind and patient and considerate, and 



Address oj Mr. Sulzer, of New York 179 

he took a great interest in the welfare of younger men. He was 
always glad to help those that needed help. He had a sun- 
shiny, genial disposition; a quaint sense of humor; he dearly 
loved a good story, and yet he was one of the most learned, 
one of the most erudite, one of the most eloquent, and one of 
the gravest men it has ever been my good fortune to know. In 
every sense of the word he was a great man and a -true man 
and an honest man, and he believed in his fellow-man. He 
looked on the bright side of life. He knew the world was 
growing better; he was optimistic and not pessimistic. There 
was nothing of the skeptic or the cynic in his make-up. He 
never lost faith in humanity. 

He was a lover of liberty, a friend of freedom, a believer in 
the supremacy of the law, and one of the greatest constitutional 
lawyers this country has ever produced. He believed in the 
greatness and the glory and the grander destiny of the Repub- 
lic and stood for that great cardinal principal of Jefferson, 
"Equal rights to all, special privileges to none." He had no 
use for the trickster, the trimmer, and the trader. He was a 
great constructive statesman — a creator of statute law. He 
hated cant, spurned pretense, and despised hypocrisy. He was 
a simple man and a great Democrat. He was an indefatigable 
worker and he met Napolean's test — he did things — things that 
will live, things that are now history. He was a fearless man 
and dared to do what he thought was right, regardless of conse- 
quences. He was a faithful public official and he died in the 
service of his country — ripe in years and crowned with glory. 
His work is done. His career is finished. He has reaped his 
everlasting reward in the great beyond. Grand old man of 
Alabama, hail and farewell! 



[8o Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pcttus 

EDMUND W. PETTUS 

( )n this occasion I desire to place on record my humble tribute 
to the memory of my friend, dear old Senator Edmund Winston 
Pettus, of Alabama, and to say just a few words regarding his 
life, his character, and his public services. 

General Pettus, Mr. Speaker, was one of the quaintest nun 
and one of the most unique characters it has ever been my good 
fortune to know. The Congress will never see his like again. 
He was sui generis. I became acquainted with him when he 
first came to the Senate in March, 1897, then in his seventv-fifth 
year — a hale and hearty old man, 75 years young — and during 
the time he served in the Senate I had frequent occasion to see 
him and to discuss with him many questions of public moment. 
The better you knew him the more you liked him. He was in 
many respects a very remarkable man, and much of the story of 
his long and interesting life reads like a romance. 

He was a lovable man. He had a genial disposition and an 
attractive personality. He made friends and he held them for 
life. He was a man of much learning and erudition, and he was 
a hard-working student all his life. He was a man of great 
physique and of rugged character — one of the Creator's truly 
noble men. He was intensely democratic in all things. He' 
loved the old landmarks of the fathers. He had a pleasing, 
confiding way that made him many friends, and when he died, 
full of honors, at the ripe old age of 86 years, I do not believe 
he had an enemy in all the world. He was a student and a 
soldier, a lawyer and a legislator, and in every field of his intense 
and heroic endeavor he reflected credit on himself, honor on 
his State, and glory on his country. He lived to a good old 
age, and was the oldest man and the best-loved man in the 
Senate when he died. His life, so perfect in all things, is an 
inspiration to us all, a priceless heritage to generations vet 



Address o) Mr. Stdzer, bj New York i,Si 

unborn, so pure, so simple, so just, so true, so noble, and so 
grand. The poet must have had him in mind when he sang: 

Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time. 

Mr. Speaker, Edmund Winston Pettus was born in Lime- 
stone County, Ala., on the 16th day of July, 182 1. He came 
from good old Revolutionary stock. He was to the manor 
born — a true American. His grandfather on his mother's side 
was Capt. Anthony Winston, a brave and distinguished Revo- 
lutionary soldier. Young Pettis received his early education 
in the schools of Alabama, and graduated from Clinton College, 
in Smith County, Tenn. He studied law in the office of William 
Cooper, then the leading lawyer in northern Alabama. He was 
admitted to the bar in 1842, on reaching his majority, and 
immediately began the practice of law in Gainesville, Ala. In 
1 844 he was elected solicitor for the seventh circuit , but when 
the Mexican war broke out he resigned, and enlisted and served 
as a lieutenant in his company. In 1849 the stories of the gold 
fields in California attracted him, and as a member of a little 
party he made -the trip across the continent on horseback, but 
soon returned to the scenes of his former labors. Shortly there- 
after he moved to Dallas County, where he identified himself 
with a well-known law firm and practiced law successfully until 
the outbreak of the civil war. He enlisted in 1861 as a major 
in the Confederate army, was soon promoted to be a brigadier- 
general, and throughout the war he won continual plaudits for 
his bravery in battle — a dashing, grand, heroic figure, the idol 
of the chivalrous soldiers of the Southland. 

In the trying days following the war of the States he con- 
tinued the practice of the law with much success and unhesi- 



182 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

tatingly bore his share of the burdens of those distressful times 
In 1896 he was nominated by his party and unanimously elected 
by the legislature of Alabama to the United States Senate, 
where he served faithfully, industriously, and with much favor- 
able commendation until his death — loved and honored and 
respected and mourned by all. Such, in brief, is the story of 
his life, but — 

Life is but a day, at most, 

Sprung from night, in darkness lost. 

Mr. Speaker, Senator Pettus was not only a great soldier 
in two famous wars, but he was a great constitutional lawyer 
and a far-seeing, constructive statesman. He was not a great 
talker, but he was a great worker. He believed in doing things, 
and doing them well. He believed in plod and progress, and 
there was no more indefatigable worker in Congress. He was 
invaluable in committee work. During the time he was in the 
Senate he accomplished much, and he has stamped the impress 
of his personality indelibly on the statutes of our country. He 
loved justice and hated intolerance. 

He was a many-sided man, a myriad-minded man, deep and 
profound, and yet without trick or artifice. He had no man- 
nerisms. He was a Democrat of the Jefferson school. He 
knew and loved Andrew Jackson. He believed in the capacity 
of the people to govern themselves. He was opposed to cen- 
tralization of wealth and of power. He believed in the Con- 
stitution. He loved humanity and glorified in the coming of the 
better day. He was a gentleman of the old school, with a kindly 
nature and a courteous manner that made you feel at home, 
but at the same time the dignity of his character commanded 
the respect that was his due. He had a ready wit and a humor 
that was all his own. He was a lovable companion, and his 
fund of anecdotes, generally with an application, seemed inex- 



Address of Mr. Stdzer, of New York 183 

haustible. He was a great man, and he has left his impress on 
the history of his time. As the years come and go those who 
knew him best will miss him more and more — this kindly, 
earnest, brave, sincere, and grand old man of Alabama, who 
lived so many useful years to do good work for the home, for 
the State, for the country, and for humanity. 



184 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 



Address of Mr. Heflin, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker : In listening to the addresses touching the lives 
and character of Senators Morgan and Pettus, my thoughts 
went back to the South and her momentous problems of the 
sixties — aye, farther still, to the early history-making days of 
the Republic. 

That section of our common country that produced Morgan 
and Pettus has given to the nation some of its most illustrious 
sons — men whose names are radiant on the brightest page of 
American history. 

Mr. Speaker, two Republican Members at this session of Con- 
gress have indulged in uncomplimentary references to the South 
and her part in the war between the States. Had they been 
living, neither Senator Morgan nor Senator Pettus would 
have permitted these unkind and unwarranted allusions to go 
unchallenged. 

As an ardent believer in the South's right to secede and as a 
Representative of the State that these two Confederate soldiers 
loved and served so well, I decline to be silent on the subject 
Let us dispassionately and in the interest of truth inquire 
briefly, What has been the South's contribution to civil liberty 
and constitutional government? Go ask the historian, and he 
will tell you that the first expression of legislative liberty came 
from Virginia, when she elected an assembly and established 
trial by jury; and when Great Britain levied taxes against the 
Colonies without their consent, that it was the Virginia assembly 
that declared that none but the representatives of the Colonies 
could lawfully tax them. Our fathers declined to pay the taxes, 



Address of Mr. Heflin, oj Alabama 185 

and the British Parliament ordered them earned to England 
to be t ried for treason. Again the South responded, and Pat rick 
Henry denounced that high-handed exercise of arbitrary power. 
It was this bold and righteous conduct on the part of a 
Southerner that led to a political union of the Colonies and has 
tened a declaration of colonial rights. 

The exigencies of the times demanded legislation of a general 
character, and a Continental Congress was called. Again the 
South responded, and Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was chosen 
president of that congress, and it was his splendid genius and 
constructive statesmanship that guided the deliberations of that 
patriotic body of men. When recounting the wrongs inflicted 
upon his countrymen, it was Richard Henry Lee, a Southerner, 
who introduced a resolution declaring the independence of the 
Colonies. The passage of that resolution involved a stupendous 
task. Again the South responded, and Thomas Jefferson, the 
"father of Democracy," wrote that immortal document — the 
Declaration of Independence. The die was cast, and in the dim 
distance could be heard the muttering thunder of British guns. 
Who now, in all the Colonies, should lead in the clash of arms? 
In a moment the answer comes, and George Washington, a 
Southerner, is commander in chief of the Continental forces. 

Mr. Speaker, I wish, in passing, to correct a bit of history 
as written by Mr. Bancroft. The first tea party was held not 
at Boston Harbor, but at Wilmington, N. C. The first blow 
for American liberty was struck not at Concord, Mass., but at 
the battle of Alamance, in North Carolina, and there "the em- 
battled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world." 
It was on Southern soil, at Yorktown, Va., that Lord Cornwallis 
surrendered to Washington. There the British lion crouched 
at the feet of the American eagle, and from that historic spot 
truth spoke with the thunder's voice and liberty walked with 



1 86 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

unfettered step. When the roar of musketry and the thunders 
of artillery had died away and peace was declared a Constitu- 
tional Convention was called. Who now should preside over the 
deliberations of that brave and patriotic body of men? Again 
the South responded, and George Washington was chosen Presi- 
dent of the Convention. 

Mr. Speaker, who was to perform the most signal and con- 
spicuous service in that Convention? Again the South re- 
sponded, and James Madison, of Virginia, wrote the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. When the infant Republic had been 
christened in the name of the people and was making ready to 
take her place in the family of nations, into whose hands was 
she committed for safe and conservative guidance? Into the 
hands of him lovingly acclaimed "Father of his Country," and 
George Washington, a Southerner, was the first President of 
the United States. For more than half a century from that 
time John Marshall, of Virginia, and Roger B. Taney, of Mary- 
land, as Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, construed the 
law. Southern men were the leaders in the House and in the 
Senate of the National Congress; Southern men, under Jack- 
son, who triumphed in the war of 1812, and Southern men who 
followed the blades of Winfield Scott and Jefferson Davis into 
the heritage of the Montezumas. I would show to the gentle- 
man from New York [Mr. Sherman] and the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Dalzeix], and I would show to the world 
that in the light of these patriotic truths Southern men could 
never have fought as they did at Gettysburg and perished as 
they did at Cramptons Gap unless they had fought for the 
love of principle. 

Mr. Speaker, both of our dear dead Senators Morgan and 
Pettus were Confederate soldiers, and no man ever donned a 
uniform or drew a battle blade who could point with more pride 



Address of Mr. Heflin, of Alabama 187 

and devotion to his flag than did these two knightly Southern- 
ers to the starry cross of the Confederacy. It represented to 
them the dearest rights and privileges that the fathers had 
planted in the Constitution of our common country. 

The idea of States rights was the dominating idea in the 
Constitutional Convention. It was the golden thread running 
through the magnificent fabric of that marvelous instrument— 
the Federal Constitution. When the question of citizenship 
came up for consideration — when the power touching the quali- 
fication of voters was up for discussion — some of the delegates 
contended that there should be one standard of qualification 
and that that standard should be fixed by the General Gov- 
ernment. This idea was overwhelmingly defeated under the 
splendid leadership of Benjamin Franklin, who took the posi- 
tion that the State and the State alone should say who shall or 
shall not exercise the elective franchise. When the work of the 
Convention had been completed and the Constitution submitted 
to the various States for ratification, it was conceded every- 
where, and public speakers on the hustings proclaimed it from 
the stump, that the State could withdraw from the Union when- 
ever its people decided to do so. The doctrine of the Constitu- 
tion, the doctrine of State sovereignty, was handed down from 
sire to son, and especially was this true of the South. "Light 
Horse Harry" Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, and a devoted 
follower of Washington, wrote Mr. Madison in 1792, saying: 

For no consideration on earth would I do anything that could be con- 
strued into a disregard of or faithlessness to this Commonwealth. 

Again, in 1788, he declared: 

Virginia is my country; her will 1 obey, however lamentable the fate 
to which it may subject me. 

Rawles's view of the Constitution was the accepted text- 
book at the academy when Robert E. Lee was a cadet at West 



i8<S Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

Point, and it expressly taught that "The secession of a State 
depends upon the will of the people of such State." 

Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, said recently that: 
" Prior to the war between the States the opinion was universal 
that in case of an unavoidable conflict between the State and 
Federal Government sovereignty resided with the State and to 
it allegiance was due." 

When the South saw her people denied communion in the 
churches because of what the North styled the leprosy of 
slavery; when she saw her people denied a share of the terri- 
tory acquired by her diplomacy, blood, and treasure; when she 
saw the common Constitution of all the States violated, acting 
in her sovereign capacity and exercising a constitutional right, she 
sought a quiet and peaceable separation from the General Govern- 
ment. This course the North opposed, and the war followed. 

But, Mr. Speaker, never until Lee surrendered at Appomat- 
tox and the Lord God laid on the shoulder of every soldier in 
gray the sword of his imperishable knighthood was the right to 
secede withdrawn from the State. 

Senators Morgan and Pettis accepted the verdict of the 
sword, and they returned to Alabama to start life over again 
on the ruins that the war had wrought. They were in the 
midst of a new order of things. The slaves bought of our 
white brethren in the North were without authority set free. 
The labor system upon which our people had so long depended 
had been destroyed, and the ballot, that which represented 
privileges and powers for which the quick-witted Celt and the 
thoughtful Saxon had struggled a thousand years to achieve, 
was given in the twinkling of an eye to the unfit hordes of an 
inferior race. 

Senators Morgan and Pettus passed through bitter and try- 
ing experiences — experiences, Mr. Speaker, that made the heart 



Address of Mr. Heflm, of Alabama 189 

sick. They saw the slave of yesterday go up and occupy the 
seat of civic authority; defile the temple of the Anglo-Saxon; 
make and administer the law; and this was reconstruction 
mantled in a saturnalia of crime that shocked and astounded 
the civilized world. 

Xo two men in Alabama, or in the South, did more to stay 
the hideous tide of negro domination than the two dearly 
beloved Senators whose death the House mourns to-day. 

In the dark and trying days of reconstruction these two men 
were foremost among the defenders of Anglo-Saxon civilization. 
They realized that submission to the reign of the carpetbagger 
meant the overthrow, the destruction, of all that was sacred 
to the white man in the South, and knowing this they dared to 
do things from which the timid would shrink and the award 
would flee. 

When the ruthless hand of political injustice grappled at tin 
vitals of our social order, Senators Morgan and Pettus went 
about among- the people pleading with them to stand firm and 
fear not — that it were better to die defending the institutions 
of the white man than to live to see that imperial race sub- 
merged in the degredation that negro domination would bring. 

Mr Speaker, in conclusion let me say, the wealth of a State 
or a nation consists not in fertile soil, mineral land, or hoarded 
gold, but it consists in the manhood of her men and the woman- 
hood of her women. 

Senators Morgan and Pettus were able, courageous, manly 
men. They were men of high purpose and strong convictions 
No power on earth could intimidate or terrorize either of them 
As private citizens, as Confederate soldiers, anil as public 
servants they were faithful and fearless in the discharge of 
every duty as God gave them the power to see it. Neither of 
them was blessed with material wealth, but both of them were 



i go Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

rich in all that is best and bravest in man. Alabama delighted 
to honor these grand old men, and in honoring them she hon- 
ored herself, and felt at all times that when they responded to 
her name in the Senate of the United States that her highest 
and best interests were in the hands of able and incorruptible 
men — men of heroic mold. 

Rich indeed in priceless jewels is the country that can boast 
them her sons. Fortunate indeed are we that we can claim 
them as countrymen and feel the quickening inspiration of the 
example to high-minded, noble endeavor. [Applause.] 



Address of Mr. Hohson, of Alahnniii m] 



Address of Mr. Hobson, of Alabama 

Mr. Speaker: A scarcely higher privilege could come to an 
Alabamaian than to have an opportunity to thus do honor to the 
memory of two great men from our State, General Morgan and 
General Pettus. 

On June 1 1 , 1907, John Tyler Morgan, and six weeks later, 
on July 27, Edmund Winston Pettus each answered the final 
call and closed his record of faithful service to his fellow-man, 
to his country, and to his God. On that day in June when the 
news of the death of Senator Morgan reached our State, and on 
that day in July when the sad tidings came that Senator PETTUS 
had followed his lifelong friend and colleague to the grave, "the 
mingled tones of sorrow like the voice of many waters was heard 
throughout the State," for Alabama was "weeping for her hon- 
ored sons." Joined with the grief of Alabama was the sorrow 
of her sister States, for the loss was not alone to the State and 
the South, but to the nation as well. 

In all the varied walks of the long and noble lives of these two 
great Alabamians the}' had played every part well; their rec- 
ords in war and in peace, in public and private life, are records 
of which the State is justly proud, and the memory of their lives 
and achievements is a rich heritage to the youths of our land. 

SENATOR MORGAN. 

Senator Morgan's public career began before the civil war, 
and he early displayed those traits which won for him after- 
wards such a brilliant career in national life. When the war 
broke out he enlisted as a private in the Confederate arm v. 



io2 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

Here his abilitv and courage soon won him a commission as 
major, and later as a brigadier-general. During the trying 
days immediately following the war he took an active part in 
the work of bringing order out of chaos. In this he so clearly 
demonstrated his ability and worth that he was chosen United 
States Senator for the term beginning 'March 4, 1877. 

His six terms in the Senate were filled with evidences of high- 
est patriotism, and he always strove to render a maximum of 
service to his State and country. His sterling honesty and per- 
sistence of character soon made him a powerful figure in Con- 
gress. His curt refusal of the offer of the president of the 
Southern Pacific Railroad to make him consulting attorney for 
the companv, al S.so.ooo per year, just after Senator Morgan 
had forced an investigation of the Southern Pacific that enabled 
the Government to regain much valuable land that had been 
fraudulently used, is both well known and characteristic. He 
informed the railroad magnate that he had come to the Senate 
to serve the people and not the railroads, and that anyone who 
would make him such an offer was not welcome under his roof. 

Though the route selected for the canal connecting the At- 
lantic and Pacific oceans is not the one favored by Morgan, yet 
the canal itself will ever be recognized as a permanent monu- 
ment to Senator Morgan, for it was due to his untiring and 
persistent labor that the people were finally aroused to the 
importance and necessity of building the canal. 

Gifted with a breadth of vision possessed by few men of this 
en any other generation, Senator Morgan early recognized the 
great importance to America of acquiring the Hawaiian Islands. 
In the face of the opposition of his party, he fought consistently 
to have the United States annex these islands; and without his 
aid the great peace nation might have lost this important out- 
post in the Pacific 



Address of Mr. Hobson, of Alabama 193 

Soon after the annexation of Hawaii the wisdom of his course 
was vindicated, for they proved invaluable to us in the Spanish 
American war. 

He had the vision of a world statesman, and saw far in 
advance of his time that the control of the Pacific depended 
upon the possession of this great strategic point, stationed at a 
point well named the "crossroads of the Pacific," and of still 
more importance, he realized that the control of the Pacific 
was vitally necessary to maintaining our national integritv. 

In this, as in all other matters touching our foreign relations 
and policies, he took the lead in advocating that our Govern- 
ment maintain strong and just policies with foreign nations. 

While always a loyal Democrat, he was an American before he 
was a Democrat, and when his principles and party policy con- 
flicted he never hesitated in standing for those principles against 
his party. 

The resources of Alabama were recognized by him before 
the world at large realized the wonderful natural wealth of 
our State, and he was a pioneer in proclaiming to the world 
the remarkable advantages of our State. He never ceased 
to work for the advancement and development of state and 
nation until the hand of death interposed. 

SENATOR PETTUS. 

The history of Senator Pettus is that of the state which la- 
has served so long, so faithfully, and so successfully. He was 
born but two years after the admission of Alabama into the 
Union, and in its every activity of war and of peace he took 
the active part of leader. 

When the war with Mexico was declared Senator Pettus 
volunteered his services to his country and served it gallantly 
as a lieutenant until the victorious end. Again, when the civil 
75750—09 13 



x 



194 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

war opened, Senator Pettus drew his sword, but this time in 
behalf of his State. He distinguished himself at Vicksburg by 
conspicuous personal bravery, and again at Franklin by the 
skillful manner in which he handled his brigade in covering the 
disordered retreat of the Confederates. When the god of war 
had declared against him Senator Pettus did not nurse his 
grievances nor yield to the despair of defeat, but entered 
actively upon the rehabilitation of his State and country under 
the new regime. 

He took but little part in politics as a profession, and sought 
no office for himself, but he spared himself never when there 
was aught he could do to win the white man's battle. As 
a private citizen he served his State so well that it finally 
thrust honor upon him by making him its Senator. That part 
of his life spent in the Capital working in the interest of his 
country is known to all, and, indeed, is writ so legibly in the 
annals of national achievement that he who runs may read. 
There remains, therefore, for me only to join my voice with 
the voices of my colleagues and my countrymen in sorrow at 
the loss, and in thanksgiving for the example of so illustrious 
an Alabamian and so able an American as the late Senator 
Pettus. 

Mr. Speaker, the world is better for the example of the lives 
of such men as Senators Morgan and Pettus, and I thank 
God that such men call themselves Americans. 



Address of Mr. Hardy, 0} Texas 195 



Address of Mr. Hardy, of Texas 

Mr. Speaker: I feel almost like- a stranger in the sacred 
chamber of the dead, but I shall disclose the reason why I also 
feel that 1 have some right or some cause to feel adopted into 
the family of those who weep or mourn to-day. Sitting here 
and listening to these reverent and loving tributes, I was re- 
mined of the lines of the great poet, who said: 
Lives of great men all remind us 

We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time. 

And I wondered if it were so. I scarcely think it is; but we 
may emulate the virtues of great men, and if, when life's fitful 
dream is over, the flowers of love are laid upon our resting 
place, as they are to-day brought to this chamber, by those who 
have known us, our lives will not have been lived in vain. I 
did not have the pleasure of ever meeting with Senator Morgan, 
but Texas is full of his fame. Texas is full of Alabamans, and 
they love the old home State, and over the prairies and valleys 
of Texas John T. Morgan was known for his broad, deep 
statesmanship, and loved for his high, pure character. I did 
have the pleasure of meeting Senator PETTus, and I shall never 
cease to remember with pleasure the slight acquaintance and 
brief conversation I had with him. I came here in the begin- 
ning of last year as a stranger, and went, as most visitors do, 
over into the Senate Chamber, as well as this. In the Senate 
I was struck by the vision I saw. Observing those most noted, 
as they were pointed out, I saw always at his post the Senator 
from Alabama, Mr. PETTus. Loaded down with years, his 



196 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

slightly bended form was always in his place. I said to myself, 
with that vision in view, he is " the noblest Roman of them all." 
That was the impression Senator Pettus made on me, and 
looking on him I thought of what was said of the Roman senate 
once, when every man, to the visitor, seemed a king, and I 
thought how the petty princes of the earth would shrivel in 
the presence of such magnificent manhood as seemed to me to 
stand before me. 

I sought an introduction and obtained it, and the impression 
was deepened from the conversation I had, when the old man 
talked with the simplicity of a child and the kindliness of a 
father. He said to me: " Do you know one Captain Bradley in 
Texas?" I replied, "Senator, Captain Bradley, afterwards 
Judge Bradley, was the man who was on the district bench 
as district judge when I was district attorney. He was a 
Chesterfield in knightly bearing and a man whom above all 
others I revered and loved." Then he told me of the incident 
which has been referred to by more than one of the speakers 
on this occasion, of the charge at Vicksburg upon the redoubt 
that had been captured by the Federals and was sought to be 
recaptured again by the Confederates. In simple language he 
told me that one Alabama company had not been decimated, 
but had been destroyed, every man to the last, if I remember 
aright, when he was called upon to find volunteers to take 
that redoubt. Said he, "I turned to Captain Bradley (ask- 
ing him his name), of Walls's Texas brigade, and asked if he 
could get me thirty men to volunteer to take that fort." He 
told me the circumstances, how Captain Bradley and his first 
lieutenant, Lieutenant Hogue, each called for fifteen men, and 
not fifteen men but the entire command had volunteered. He 
told me how they were counted off with the statement from 
Captain Bradley that he wanted no married men to take part. 



Address of Mr. Hardy, of Texas 107 

I may have some of Senator Pettus' s conversation confused with 
some of the statements of some of the soldiers who partici- 
pated, and with whom I afterwards talked. But as I have 
learned it, one of the officers, young High, said to Bradley, 
"Captain, you are a married man; let me lead the troops." 
Bradley had said in reply, "No; where my troops go, I lead 
them." And so the fifteen men were counted off by the lieu- 
tenant and the captain, and as Senator Pettus told me, he 
(Pettus,) then said: "Boys, I will lead you." But it was ob- 
jected that Bradley's men must be led by him, and then Sena- 
tor Pettus, waiving his superior rank, said, "We will go 
together," and together they did go. 

The manner and the method of it I will not undertake to 
describe; but taking a circuitous route, while the fire of our 
forces was being concentrated upon that fort, before the enemy 
knew it they had landed in their rear, had spiked their guns, 
and were upon them and captured them without the loss of a 
man, though not without a scratch. Senator Pettus said to me 
that after the conflict was over and the capture made, and they 
had marched back with a greater force of the enemy captured 
than the number of their own command, and with the captured 
flag, some Texas soldier, who did not know his rank, asked who 
was that tall Alabaman that was with them, and then his 
identity was disclosed; and then the Texans said they did not 
care who he was, but they moved "he be elected a Texan." 
Senator Pettus said to me, with a slight tremble in his voice 
but the light of a glorious memory in his eyes, "that of all 
the honors that had ever been showered upon him that his 
adoption as a Texan by that election was as dear to him, if 
not dearer, than any other." 

I told him then that Judge or Captain Bradley had already- 
passed over the river and had found his reward, but in my home 



198 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

town was one of his daughters and in a neighboring town 
was another, and a son, and that they would be glad to have 
the story of that incident. When I went home I wrote Senator 
Pettus and asked him to please give it to me in writing, and 
that is why I have what you, Mr. Speaker [Mr. Taylor, of 
Alabama in the chair], never succeeded in eliciting from the 
Senator. I do not know how it is, but sometimes men's hearts, 
under the fierce heat of the fire of struggle and danger, in a 
moment's time are welded together more closely than they can 
be by a long life of cold social relations, and I take it that for 
the sake of the daughter of his old comrade in that fierce 
strife he wrote an account of that incident, which I have, and 
which it is my purpose to place in the Record, and I ask that 
my remarks be extended by including this story of the charge 
at Vicksburg, as told in the letter of Senator Pettus. 

Mr. Speaker, we all have our impressions when we meet a 
great man of the earth, and sometimes there is such a similarity 
in certain elements of that impression with other impressions 
of similar men that they but illustrate our ideas of character. 
It has been said that Senator Pettus was a modest man. In 
that I concur, for in the record of the report it appears that 
when the flag was captured and a controversy arose between 
him and Captain Bradley as to who should retain it, Senator 
Pettus said, "It belongs to the Texans," and so it was held. 
In his conversation he made another remark. He said to me 
that "The bravest man I ever saw was L. D. Bradley under all 
circumstances," and the old soldiers to whom I repeated the 
remark when I met them said that no less a brave man was 
Edmund W. Pettus, of Alabama. 

It made me think of the story that is told of Lee and Jack- 
son. When Jackson was stricken down in the hour of battle, 
Lee made the remark that it would have been better for the 



Address of Mr. Hardy, of Texas iqq 

country if it had been he, and when this was reported to Jack- 
son, lying on his deathbed, he would not have it so, but declared 
that Lee was the one man and the only man he ever knew whom 
he would willingly follow blindfolded. 

These two men, with honest praise and high estimate of each 
other, have expressed their noble character, and in the South 
to-day our enthusiastic sons are still debating which was the 
greater in arms — Lee or Jackson. They do not debate who was 
the greater man, because in all that makes great and noble 
manhood neither ever had a superior. 

I cherished, and still cherish, the letter of Senator PETTUS. 
At a reunion of the old Confederates in Captain Bradley's home 
county in Texas last year I read it. Some half a dozen of the 
men referred to in the letter live around my home now — there 
is Mr. Burleson, Mr. High, Mr. Patterson, and I forget the 
names of the others. These old men gather at the camp now 
as they meet in reunion, and they live over and talk over the 
capture of that redoubt with General Pettus, of Alabama. 
They love to talk of the incidents where they confronted death 
together. 

Senator Pettus told me this story with the utmost uncon- 
sciousness as if there was nothing remarkable in it. I heard 
another story of like unconscious heroism at my table once 
two years ago when we had a reunion of old soldiers in my 
town, and one of my guests was a little fellow scarcely 5 feet 
and 4 inches tall. He told me he had volunteered in that great 
struggle when he was a little over 14, and he said with child- 
like simplicity, "I was smaller then than I am now." He said 
on the long marches, as the army went through the country, 
frequently his feet grew weary and sore, and that he had to 
sit down by the roadside and cry, and many a time some big 
and stronger companion had eased him a part of his burden; 



200 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Petius 

but he said, "I always caught up at night and was with the 
camp by the time the tent was struck and was ready for battle 
when the battle opened." ' 

The little fellow told me with verbose words how the struggle 
went on from day to day and week to week, and never in it 
dreamed that he was himself a hero of the same brand of him 
that wears the stripes and epaulets — perhaps the v hero of a 
little different brand because he knew no beating drum or 
flying banner would greet him when he returned home, but he 
knew he was performing what he felt was right. It was with 
the same unconscious display, or the want of consciousness of 
heroism in it, that General Pettus related the incident of the 
Vicksburg redoubt. 

Mr. Speaker, as I say, I was not thinking of making any 
talk, but the fact that this incident had been referred to and 
the fact that I have in my possession the authentic statement 
of Senator Pettus himself, and the fact that we as Texans and 
as sons of old Confederates, thirty of whom he, with an old 
companion of mine, led to that glorious attack, made it impos- 
sible for me to fail to say these few words upon this occasion. 

United States Senate, 
Washington, D. C, March n, 1907. 
Hon. Rufus Hardy, Corsicana, Tex. 

Dear Sir: Your letter came this evening. Capt. L. D. Bradley, of 
General Waul's legion, was born and commenced the practice of law in 
Dallas County, Ala. He was, in his early days, a partner of Col. N. H. R. 
Dawson, who was afterwards and for twenty-six years my partner. But 
I moved to Dallas County after Captain Bradley had moved West, and 
I met him first at the siege of Vicksburg. A redoubt on the hill just 
south of the railroad to Jackson was on the line held there by Col. Charles 
M. Shelley of the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment. I was then in command 
of a fragment of the Forty-sixth Alabama Regiment, which had lost all 
of its field officers at Bakers Creek, and would not volunteer. So, when 
I received an order to retake that fort I went to Waul's legion, near and 



Address of Mr. Hardy, of Texas 201 

also 111 reserve, and met with Colonel Waul, and told him what 1 wanted 
He said: "I will not order, but if any of my companies will volunteer, 
I will consent." So I went on and first met Captain Bradley and told 
him what I wanted. He questioned me. He said, "Did you see tli.a 
Alabama company killed, trying to take it?" I answered, "Yes, I saw- 
it, but the captain and all his men were killed before they got to the back 
door of the redoubt; I expect to kill them before they know I am coming." 
Captain Bradley then turned to a lieutenant commanding a company 
next to his, and asked, "Shall I take the whole job, or will you go halves?" 
The lieutenant answered, "I will go if you go." Then Captain Bradley 
asked, "How many men do you want?" I told him, "About thirty is 
as many as can be used in so small a place." 

"Count olT fifteen from the right!" And the lieutenant gave the same 
order to his company. 

So, in a moment I had a company of thirty Texans, and three men of 
Colonel Shelley's Thirtieth Alabama joined us almost as soon as I gave 
the first order; which was, "March to the right." So we moved away 
from the redoubt until out of sight of the enemy; then changed direction 
and went into the Confederate ditches, in which we marched rapidly, 
heads down and out of sight, until we reached the redoubt captured by 
the Federals. Then we halted, Captain Bradley and I in front, and 
waited until the men closed up. We were still where we could not be 
seen by the Federals. So soon as we got in this position I waved and 
threw- down my red bandanna handkerchief as a signal to the Confederates, 
who were firing in the back door of this redoubt, to stop firing. Instantly 
their firing ceased, and my little party, Captain Bradley and I in front, 
dashed into the redoubt and in a few seconds' time those in the redoubt 
and at the back door were disposed of. They had their heads down to 
avoid the firing from the outside. In that charge not one of the assault- 
ing party was scratched, but two of the Texans rushed to the rear and 
fired over the broken walls at the Federals on the outside, and in doing 
so were shot in the face, but not seriously hurt 

The floor of that redoubt was more than covered by dead soldiers — 
Confederates and Federals. 

Instantly I ordered the men to get to cover, which was done, and all 
of the federal guns — a large number — opened fire on the redoubt. There 
were then still a considerable number of Federals in the ditch in front of 



202 Memorial Addresses: Senators Morgan and Pettus 

the redoubt. They were ordered to surrender, and attempted to do so by 
coming through the portholes, which had been widened by the fire of the 
federal guns, and several of them were shot by the Federals on the outside- 
Then they were ordered to come around the redoubt in the ditch to the rear, 
and in that way three officers and thirty-three men were taken prisoners 
and sent to the rear. The two men shot in the face, as above stated, were 
all of the casualties suffered by the attacking party. The federal fire from 
the outside batteries continued until dark, but I required every man to keep 
to cover. 

So soon as anything could be heard one of Captain Bradley's men, with 
buckskin breeches, demanded of his captain to know " What fellow was 
that that brought us into this hell's hole?" and the captain replied, " 1 don't 
know." And the soldier replied, with perfect freedom, "That's a hell of a 
story, captain. Don't know his name or his rank?" The captain said 
" no," he did not. Thereupon the soldier replied, " I move we elect him a 
Texan, name or no name, rank or no rank." And the captain put the mo 
tion to a vote, as though he was presiding at a town meeting, and I was 
unanimously elected "a Texan"— the greatest honor 1 ever received, 
though I have had many beyond my deservings. 

General Pemberton and his chief engineer officer visited this redoubt 
soon after dark and gave orders for its repair that night. And General 
Waul, with members of his staff, also visited it, and the attacking party 
was relieved and returned to their commands. 

Captain Bradley was the coolest man I ever saw under fire. I talked 
with him several times during the siege and in that way learned who he 
was and where he was raised, etc., but I have never seen him since the 
surrender of Vicksburg, though f met with his father, who revisited his 
old home near Selma, where I live. Please present my kindest regards to 
his daughters. 

Most respectfully, E. W. Petti rs. 

P. S. : You can find the outlines of this transaction in the reports of 
Gen. Stephen D. Lee and Gen. C. L. Stephenson, in volume 24, part 2, 
of the War of the Rebellion. And also in President Davis's Rise and Fall 
of the Confederacy, page 415. 

I regret that I can not give you the name of the lieutenant mentioned. 
I think I have it at home, in Alabama. 

R. W. P. 



Address of Mr. Hardy, of Texas 203 

The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Taylor, of Alabama) In 
compliance with the resolution already adopted, and as a fur- 
ther mark of respect to the late Senator Morgan and Senator 
Pettus, this House will take a recess until 11.30 o'clock a. m. 
on Monday next. 

Accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 14 minutes p. 111.) the House 
was in recess until 1 L.30 a. 111. on Monday next. 

U 



I . '09 



